tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4342811133328800388Fri, 09 Dec 2016 12:53:09 +0000climate changepeak oilcollapseglobal warmingseneca cliffrenewable energySeneca effectenergycrude oilthe limits to growthItalyroman empireAspoUkrainefossil fuelssystem dynamicsclub of Romedepletionextractedhoaxrussiaseneca collapseE-catTrumpcassandrafukushimalimits to growthsustainabilitycivilizationphotovoltaicspropagandaabrupt climate changeclimate scienceenergy transitionnuclear energyresource depletionCO2cli-ficlimategatecop21europejapanscamAndrea RossiBerlusconiPutincoalcold fusioneroeieroimineral depletionmineral resourcesoil pricesscienceshale oilugo bardi"e-cat"FlorenceMineralsParisRossianti-cassandraantonio turielbearclimate denialcomplex systemscomplexitydemocracydenialdeniersecosystemfisheriesfuturelenrliesnarrativeopen accesspeak civilizationresourcestainterAGWASPO-ITALYEUMichael Mannbrexitcatastrophecivilization collapseclimate catastropheclimate fiction.danizadisasterefficiencyempire of liesempiresenergy securityfrontiersgoldgreecehubbertnatural gasoiloil crashoil crisisoil priceoverpopulationovershootphotovoltaic energypopepopulationpost peakrenewablesrossi and focardisaudi arabiathermodynamicstransitionwar100% renewablesApril foolGaiaHillary ClintonLewandowskyMEDEASMSMObamaPartisan hostilityPrice collapseSenecaUFOacademic publishingaliensantarcticabarbastrobiosphereblack swanboycottboycott elsevierbrusselscatastrophismcatastrophistsclimate fictioncolin campbellcommunicationconspiracycontrolcorpses to oilcrisisdecline of sciencedeep futurediminishing returnsdonald trumpecosystemsegyptiansembedded energyencyclicalentropyenvironmental disastersenvironmental movementepistemologyeuroevilextinctionfalse flagfaminefinancial crisisfinancial systemfraudgasglobalizationhockey stickhubbert peakhumankindmatteo renzimethanemineral extractionnaturenuclearnuclear fusionoverfishingpollutionpope francispost-peakpublic relationsrabbitsrecursive furyrestaurantsruinsanctionsscientific methodscientific publishingshale gassolar cellsstoicismtechnocratstourismtsunamiwhale oilwind energyworld modeling"Sustainable Frontiers""oil weapon"2012201420529/11AIDSAlfred WegenerAmerican EmpireAntarcticAnthony WattsApril foolsAuctoritasBabel towerBibleBorgesCIACOPCarly FiorinaCecil the lionDilworthDmitry OrlovDurbanECEIAEasterEaster eggsEdo JapanEmpty EarthEuropean parliamentFiat 500Food supplyForresterFortress europeGail tverbergHIV. FrontiersHarold HarveyHiroshimaHopiIEAIPCCIceIranIrish famineIshiItalian pressItalian society of PhisicsJoe the plumberJohn ChurchKen CuccinelliKesheLomborgMIURMalthusMario MontiMayaMoncktonMontiMussoliniNASANafeez ahmedNasa-funded studyOlduvai theoryPeak oil climate changePecceiRichard MullerRomaRomansRussia PutinRussia and ChinaRyanairShahSoon gateSoviet UnionSpace ShuttleSpockStar TrekStrauss KahnSustainable energy transitionTTIP tradeThe NewsroomThe limits to growth revisitedTim BallTorcelloTroyTurchinUSUS productionUSGSWayne VisserWilliam NordhausWillie SoonYanagi Ryukenabductionabundanceadaptationadventureafricaafrican elephantagreementagricultureairlinesairportaleklettalien artifactsalien godsalzheimerancient astronautsanti-nuclear movementapocalypsearchdruidarthur C. 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EROEIbronze agebureaucracybusiness as usualcatholic churchcattonchasing icechelsea greenchimerachristmaschuck norriscivilisationsclimate hoaxclintonclyodynamicscoal liquefationcoal lobbycoal minescoal to liquidscognitive deficit. trustcollapse.command and controlcommunismcomplex societiesconflict of interestconservativeconspiracy theoriesconspiracy theorycontinental driftcoppercornwallcriminalcristoforetticritical materialscurrencycutting the branch you are sitting oncyborgdarwin awarddavid kingde reditudea del maredeath of literaturedebunkeddeclinedeep greendeglobalizationdelusiondemand destructiondevelopmentdiesel enginedinosaursdisinformationdoggy styledoomdoomsdaydoomstead dinerdreamtimedroidsdronesdudintsevdynamic modelsearthearthquakeearthwuakeeaster bunnyecological collapseeconomic collapseeconomic crisiseconomic growtheconomistseconomyeducationelectionelectionselectric carelectric vehicleselephant roomelephantseliteselsevieremissionsemperorempireend of fishend of oilend of the worldenergy cataliserenergy currencyenergy miracleenergy returnenvironmentenvironment friendlyequalityeschatologyethanoleuropean unionexport banexterminationextrasolar planetsextraterrestrial originextremismfacepalmfact-free societyfairy toothfestingerfinancialfinancial reformfireplacefirst world warfisheryfooling peak oilforeign policyfoxesfrackingfree energyfree scientific publishingfriendsterfuelsfunctional illiteracygagaringandhigas crisisgatesgazpromgdpgelminigeneticsgeoengineeringgermaniagermanicusgiapponeglaciationgleaningglobal warming.goodwin's lawgovernmentgreat wargreen revolutiongreenhouse gasesgreergrowthgypsieshang the popehawai'iheatheat wavehi-techhide the declinehigh altitude wind energy. airborne wind energyhistoryhokusaihomeostasishrnhubbert curvehubbert modelhuman eradicationhuman hivehumorhydrateshydrogenhyperinflationhyperthermalideologyidiotsindiansinformation deficitinnovatiointelligenceinternational space stationinternational women's dayintimidationiraqirelandisaac asimovitalian fooditalian researchitalo-greek warivory tradejay forresterjellyfishjokekiller robotsking coallandlanguagelegendsliberallife on earthlimesliteratureloccionilogiclotka-volterralunar landing hoaxlybiamagicmanuremarket systemmartingalemass extinctionmass movementsmediterranean dietmeetingmel brooksmemememesmemeticsmetalsmethane hydratesmileagemilitary rulersmini ice ageminingmiraclemiraclesmiss hokusaimistreatmentmiyazakimobusmoby dickmoneymythnanotechnologynatural resourcesnear term extinctionsnetwork theoryneutrino tunnelnickel fusionno growthnoosenorth africanovelnuclear genienuclear no thanksnuclear reactornuclear warobesityoil ageoil and gasoil collapseoil depletionoil prcesoil productionoil rigsoil shaleoil shockoil warsorgan meatoverchargingoverexploitationpaleo dietpanicparis agreementpatentpavingpeakpeak coalpeak emissionspeak energypeak researchpeak space.peakingperceptionpermian basinphoenixphotosynthesisplan 9 from outer spaceplanetplutoniumpolarizationpoliticspons and fleischmannponyopope's encyclicalpopulation boompopulationspredicamentpredictionpredictionspresidencypresidential racepriam treasureprophecypsychopsyopspublishingpyramidsrandersrantrappaportre-militarizationreductio ad hitleriumreferendumrefugee crisisrenaissancerenewablerenzireservesresource crisisrevolutionrichard duncanroad transportationrobin hoodromano prodiruddimanrutilius namatianussandstormscafettascarcityscaremongeringscenariosscientific journalsscientific miraclescientific progressscientific researchscroogeseekerssemanticshakespeareshaleshale bubblesingularitysocial inequalitysocial mediasocial psychologysocietal declinesocietysolar agesolar energysolar growthsower's pathspainstarvationsteady state economystereospherestone housestrategysubversivesumerian religionsurchargesurveysusan kucerasustainability is boringsynthetic fuelsyriasyrian malaisetechnological progresstechnologytemperaturesterrorismtertullianusteutoburgthe city and the starsthe limits to workthe seekerstheatertight oiltin miningtipping pointtipping point.tit for tattourist traptowelstoyota priustragedy of the commonstransportationtrendstrentinotruthtsiprasturkey couptwin towersunconventional gasunited statesuniversal mining machineuniversitiesunpavingunpropagandaunresturaniumurbanized landviolenceviral transmissionvisitvolkswagenwar of the sexeswarfarewarswaste managementwaterwealth distributionweapons of mass destructionwestern empirewildernesswomenworldworld hungerworld hunger.world waryahooyemenyugayzombies Cassandra's Legacyhttp://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.com (Ugo Bardi)Blogger580125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4342811133328800388.post-76742653962168163Fri, 09 Dec 2016 07:51:00 +00002016-12-08T23:59:46.045-08:00John Glenn (1921-2016): the End of an Era<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XQnlj6TIYac/WEpfOpfOs5I/AAAAAAAARGo/wy3Y2gJwRQQWpZw1-qjtyiQDAh127MytACLcB/s1600/GPN-2000-001027.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XQnlj6TIYac/WEpfOpfOs5I/AAAAAAAARGo/wy3Y2gJwRQQWpZw1-qjtyiQDAh127MytACLcB/s320/GPN-2000-001027.jpg" width="245" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>John Glenn was the first American to orbit the Earth, in 1962. It was the start of the adventure that led to the lunar landing in 1969; only seven years later. It was an age of enthusiasm and of great expectations; a time that, today, looks remote. The conquest of space may have been made possible by the high energy yield of fossil fuels that made us rich. But it is a wealth that we don't have anymore; the depletion of the high yield fossil resources is making us unable to afford the kind of extravagances that were possible decades ago. So, the death of John Glenn may signal the end of the cycle of human spaceflight.&nbsp;</i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>On this occasion, I thought I could reproduce <a href="http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.it/2015/02/the-last-astronaut-cycle-of-human.html" target="_blank">a post</a> that I published on Cassandra's Legacy in 2015. It may not be unrelated to the general decline of the concept of human spaceflight that the Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti <a href="http://www.ilfoglio.it/preghiera/2015/04/09/news/ma-samantha-non-e-un-esempio-da-seguire-82694/" target="_blank">was criticized</a> in Italy on the basis of the idea that women should stay home and have children.</i></span></div><br /><h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name">The last astronaut: the cycle of human spaceflight is coming to an end <a href="http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.it/2015/02/the-last-astronaut-cycle-of-human.html" target="_blank">(Feb 9, 2015)</a></h3><div class="post-header"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yet1367zAw4/VNdDPf2BLGI/AAAAAAAAOCU/SgHeosaPzQI/s1600/HT_samantha_cristoforetti_2_jtm_141201_16x9_992.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yet1367zAw4/VNdDPf2BLGI/AAAAAAAAOCU/SgHeosaPzQI/s1600/HT_samantha_cristoforetti_2_jtm_141201_16x9_992.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Smart, dedicated, competent, polyglot, and more; <a href="http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Human_Spaceflight/Astronauts/Samantha_Cristoforetti" target="_blank">Samantha Cristoforetti</a> seems to have been invented for a "Star Trek" episode. She is shown here at the International Space Station, where she is staying at the moment of publication of this post. <span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" id="96a61e53-f213-4cf9-acff-b0700e6c8cda"><span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" id="426aec00-7f2b-4929-b81d-7fa5e3b451a1"><span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" id="cdb6cbeb-88c8-464d-9f22-8bec3f29171a"><span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" id="400f47a5-6a54-495a-a69c-916d23396745">Cristoforetti</span></span></span></span> may not be the last astronaut to orbit the earth, but it is possible that the end of what was once called "the space age" will not be far away in the future. (<span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" id="5cae3a17-6e4c-4242-9b73-5297730d685e"><span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" id="5689429b-aed8-4bc3-8a62-ceda7b59478e"><span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" id="c57a88b1-b814-4a9a-8ee9-ed720546d7ee"><span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" id="be2e1a31-ceab-4b1c-aa26-85ae89167c3c"><span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" id="ccb93701-0eae-43fd-9147-73fb833c068a">image</span></span></span></span></span> <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/astronauts-vacuum-things-learned-samantha-cristoforetti/story?id=27287053" target="_blank">credit</a>: ESA/NASA)</i></span></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>I experienced the enthusiasm of the "space age," starting in the 1960s, and I am not happy to see the end of that old dream. Yet, the data are clear and cannot be ignored: hum<span style="font-size: x-small;">an spaceflight is winding down. Look at the graph, below. It shows the total number of people launched into space each year. (The data are from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_human_spaceflights" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a> -<a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Number_of_humans_launched_into_space_bar_chart.png" target="_blank"> more details</a>.)</span><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-V9ekks95kNo/VKHOgpQBE3I/AAAAAAAANzE/GJkFkXwpXp8/s1600/mannedflights.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="301" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-V9ekks95kNo/VKHOgpQBE3I/AAAAAAAANzE/GJkFkXwpXp8/s1600/mannedflights.png" width="400" /></a></div><br />As you see, the number of people sent to space peaked in the 1990s, following a cycle that can be fitted reasonably well using a bell-shaped curve (a Gaussian, in this case). We have not yet arrived at the end of space travel, but the number of people traveling to space is going down. With the international space station set to be retired in 2020, it may be that the "space age" is destined to come to an end in a non-remote future.&nbsp; <br /><br />The shape of the cycle can be seen as a "<a href="http://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/2/3/646" target="_blank">Hubbert </a><a href="http://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/2/3/646" target="_blank">curve."</a> This curve typically describes the exploitation of a non-renewable resource; fossil fuels in particular, but it also describes how economic activities are affected by a diminishing availability of resources. In this case, the shape of the curve suggests that we are gradually running out of the surplus resources needed to send humans into space. In a sense, the economics of human spaceflight are like those of the great pyramids of Egypt. These pyramids were expensive and required considerable surplus resources to be built. When the surplus disappeared, no more were built. The shape of the <a href="http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.it/2014/12/hubberts-pyramids.html" target="_blank">pyramid building curve </a>was, again, Hubbert-like.<br /><br />This result <span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" id="2297b695-2aac-4b63-979c-43a44b0ce2ef"><span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" id="5fded70e-e2e9-4e21-b575-a30f48f2f49f"><span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" id="5db1cc5f-1948-4bcc-a727-e63e6447b565">is not</span></span></span> surprising, considering that we are reaching the planetary <a href="http://www.sustainable.unimelb.edu.au/files/mssi/MSSI-ResearchPaper-4_Turner_2014.pdf" target="_blank">limits to growth</a>. In part, we are reacting to the diminishing availability of resources by replacing humans with less expensive robots, but sending robots <span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" id="3d755af9-912d-47c2-8097-41184a7b9590"><span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" id="ca1e9bb9-36b8-487d-af4a-6eb16a07c64e"><span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" id="16ff8ff7-48a0-4102-8dcc-91b30fc136e6">to</span></span></span> space is not the same as the "conquest of space" was once conceived. Besides, the decline of space exploration is evident also from other data, see for instance this plot showing the budget available to NASA (from "<a href="http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2015/01/05/what-do-we-expect-of-a-space-program-synopsis/" target="_blank">Starts with a Bang</a>")<span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" id="4c415895-17da-40b3-9163-b5e7c3946c81"><span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" id="92296d73-9a58-4e71-9fbb-69d0fb48f38a"><span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" id="1ba2af52-1898-4456-8756-14d9d79871b3">.</span></span></span>Note how the peak in human spaceflights coincides with the peak in the resources destined to space exploration.<br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fOV6-3OaOoQ/VKu5jq-Yr_I/AAAAAAAAN1c/7HA7KE8EMFg/s1600/whoa-600x353.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="235" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fOV6-3OaOoQ/VKu5jq-Yr_I/AAAAAAAAN1c/7HA7KE8EMFg/s1600/whoa-600x353.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zacLH4DGGlo/VNeoLkTnssI/AAAAAAAAOC0/PxFnDksVXuY/s1600/bernal-sphere-space-colony-space-art.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="229" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zacLH4DGGlo/VNeoLkTnssI/AAAAAAAAOC0/PxFnDksVXuY/s1600/bernal-sphere-space-colony-space-art.jpg" width="320" /></a>If space exploration is directly related to the availability of resources, it is also true that, from the beginning, it was not meant to be just a resource drain. The idea of the&nbsp; conquest of space involved overcoming the limits of the earth's <span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" id="40160d80-f4f5-4906-9848-98de685d14af"><span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" id="5e9e596d-e8ee-4eb8-b560-ac3a3a89d319"><span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" id="7b627454-1865-4cf6-a7d8-eeffc89f6b5b"><span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" id="17b72fe1-dc6d-45c4-a44d-e0a86bc02348"><span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" id="4586b362-bf3b-4e3e-af16-270ac5085389">ecosphere</span></span></span></span></span> and accessing the resources of the whole solar system. Some of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Doomsday-been-cancelled-Peter-Vajk/dp/0915238241" target="_blank">the concepts</a> developed in this area were thought explicitly as ways to avoid the dire scenarios laid out in the 1972 study, "The Limits to Growth." Proposals involved placing giant habitats at the Lagrange libration points, where no energy was necessary to keep them there. The idea gained some traction in the 1970s and, in the figure, you see an impression of one of those habitats - the "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernal_sphere" target="_blank">Bernal Sphere</a>."(image <a href="http://settlement.arc.nasa.gov/70sArt/art.html" target="_blank">credit</a>: NASA)<br /><br />Today, we can't look at these old drawings without shaking our heads and wondering how anyone could take them seriously. Yet, these ideas were not impossible in themselves and, in the 1970s, we still had sufficient resources to make it possible some kind of human expansion into space, even though not on the grand scale that some people were proposing. But we missed that occasion and we much preferred to invest our surplus in military toys. Today, we can't even dream of colonizing space anymore.&nbsp; <br /><br />The space age is not completely over, yet, but it is becoming more and more difficult to sustain the costs of it. Right now, the Russians are still willing to launch to orbit West European astronauts. But how long will they continue to do so while Western Europe is enacting sanctions devised to cripple <span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" id="29fc49b0-4b14-4622-9d80-6a3653c3c078">the Russian economy</span>? <a href="http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Human_Spaceflight/Astronauts/Samantha_Cristoforetti" target="_blank">Samantha Cristoforett</a>i, brave and competent Italian astronaut, may well be a member of the last patrol of humans orbiting around the earth for a long time to come.&nbsp; <br /><br /></div>http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com/2016/12/john-glenn-1921-2016-end-of-era.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ugo Bardi)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4342811133328800388.post-1887540248123532504Wed, 07 Dec 2016 17:32:00 +00002016-12-07T09:43:11.212-08:00empire of liesHillary Clintonmatteo renziMSMItaly's Referendum: the Great Defeat of Matteo Renzi, as commented by Leon Tolstoy<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-46Bx8Zg6oTI/WEXdgZD9DzI/AAAAAAAARFg/KsPfznMHZaAQcZnSun8Ohjl2XCUz7LGJwCLcB/s1600/matteoI.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-46Bx8Zg6oTI/WEXdgZD9DzI/AAAAAAAARFg/KsPfznMHZaAQcZnSun8Ohjl2XCUz7LGJwCLcB/s400/matteoI.jpg" width="313" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Matteo Renzi, Italy's prime minister, portraited as Napoleon Bonaparte on the front cover of an Italian magazine of a few years ago. For some reason, successful leaders tend to embark in risky enterprises that put their leadership at stake and, often, they fail utterly. It happened to Napoleon with the invasion of Russia and it happened to Matteo Renzi with the recent constitutional referendum that ended up with a disastrous defeat for him. </i></span></div><br /><br /><br />There is a clear parallel between the results of the Italian constitutional referendum of Dec 4th, 2016 and those of the Brexit referendum and the defeat of Hillary Clinton in the US. In all cases, we saw devastating failures for the mainstream media. People refused to listen to the messages beamed to them. They had the feeling of being swindled and probably they knew that, when you start suspecting that you are being swindled, you probably are. And they reacted accordingly.<br /><br /><br /><div>Something is deeply changing in the world. Top-down, government-controlled propaganda has been used with great efficacy for more than a century, but now it is being defeated by bottom-up, viral information that ebbs and flows in the Web. Is it a good thing?&nbsp; For sure, the defeat of the <a href="http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.it/2016/02/the-empire-of-lies.html" target="_blank">Empire of lies</a> is a good thing, but it is also true that the&nbsp; opposite of a lie is not necessarily the truth. All we can say is that it is happening and that the old ways don't work anymore.</div><div><br /></div><div>On this point, perhaps it is worth re-reading Tolstoy when he describes the surprise that Napoleon felt at the battle of Borodino, during the Russian campaign, when he, too, found that the old ways didn't work anymore.<br /><div><br /></div><br />_________________________________<br /><br /><i>Alexander Tolstoy: "War and Peace", Book 10, Chapter XXXIV</i><br /><div><div><br />Napoleon was experiencing a feeling of depression like that of an ever-lucky gambler who, after recklessly flinging money about and always winning, suddenly just when he has calculated all the chances of the game, finds that the more he considers his play the more surely he loses.<br /><br />His troops were the same, his generals the same, the same preparations had been made, the same dispositions, and the same proclamation <i>courte et energique</i>, he himself was still the same: he knew that and knew that he was now even more experienced and skillful than before. Even the enemy was the same as at Austerlitz and Friedland- yet the terrible stroke of his arm had supernaturally become impotent.<br /><br />All the old methods that had been unfailingly crowned with success: the concentration of batteries on one point, an attack by reserves to break the enemy's line, and a cavalry attack by "the men of iron," all these methods had already been employed, yet not only was there no victory, but from all sides came the same news of generals killed and wounded, of reinforcements needed, of the impossibility of driving back the Russians, and of disorganization among his own troops.<br /><br />Formerly, after he had given two or three orders and uttered a few phrases, marshals and adjutants had come galloping up with congratulations and happy faces, announcing the trophies taken, the corps of prisoners, bundles of enemy eagles and standards, cannon and stores, and Murat had only begged leave to loose the cavalry to gather in the baggage wagons. So it had been at Lodi, Marengo, Arcola, Jena, Austerlitz, Wagram, and so on. But now something strange was happening to his troops.<br /><br />Despite news of the capture of the fleches, Napoleon saw that this was not the same, not at all the same, as what had happened in his former battles. He saw that what he was feeling was felt by all the men about him experienced in the art of war. All their faces looked dejected, and they all shunned one another's eyes- only a de Beausset could fail to grasp the meaning of what was happening.<br /><br />But Napoleon with his long experience of war well knew the meaning of a battle not gained by the attacking side in eight hours, after all efforts had been expended. He knew that it was a lost battle and that the least accident might now- with the fight balanced on such a strained center- destroy him and his army.<br /><br /></div></div></div></div>http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com/2016/12/italys-referendum-great-defeat-of.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ugo Bardi)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4342811133328800388.post-195523208283345652Sun, 04 Dec 2016 17:26:00 +00002016-12-05T08:47:53.771-08:00climate changecognitive deficit. trustcommunicationinformation deficitMSMClimate science communication: trust begets trust<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-iVZcjHrke4M/WERKb3oXVnI/AAAAAAAARE0/EkmayJ4RnAgZrCMKLPXkm-4wbnhOd-TPgCLcB/s1600/Unif.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="130" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-iVZcjHrke4M/WERKb3oXVnI/AAAAAAAARE0/EkmayJ4RnAgZrCMKLPXkm-4wbnhOd-TPgCLcB/s400/Unif.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>With more than 50.000 students, the University of Florence, in Italy, is a huge organization with plenty of problems. But it is also an ancient and prestigious university that, sometimes, manages to do something right. Recently, it organized an information day on climate change for its employees that was remarkably successful, showing that trust begets trust.&nbsp;</i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Why are we failing at communicating the danger of climate change? Maybe people don't have enough information? (This is the <a href="http://www.scidev.net/global/communication/editorials/the-case-for-a-deficit-model-of-science-communic.html" target="_blank">"information deficit</a>" model). Or maybe they have too much information? (This is called the "<a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2562025" target="_blank">cultural cognition</a>" model). Or maybe they are not getting the right information? Or there is something else that's wrong?<br /><br />Without going into the details of the debate, let me tell you of an event that was an eye-opening experience for me. It made me understand that there is such a thing as an "information deficit" problem, but also that things are not as simple as that. I think that more than an information deficit, there is a "trust deficit" that blocks communication. It is not enough to tell people how things stand: we need to generate trust. And trust begets trust. But let me tell you the story.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">This year, the University of Florence decided to offer to its personnel - the employees working in the administration or in services -&nbsp; three "information days" on matters related to sustainability. One of these information days was dedicated to climate change and was held on Nov 9th, 2016. I was one of the organizers, so I followed the event from the beginning.&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-f9_uoD8PETs/WEMLOlk9YdI/AAAAAAAAREg/8bYVc3IcdoQ2G-YJKzsPsKBW-wBKagmfgCLcB/s1600/Climatechangeday.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-f9_uoD8PETs/WEMLOlk9YdI/AAAAAAAAREg/8bYVc3IcdoQ2G-YJKzsPsKBW-wBKagmfgCLcB/s200/Climatechangeday.jpg" width="140" /></a>The first point is that this was supposed to be a class; not a vacation day: there would be several talks for a total of about eight hours and we planned them as real, university-level lessons. We had climate modeling, paleoclimatology, climate negotiations, communication, mitigation, adaptation, and more. It was communication directed to non-scientists, but the speakers were all specialists in their fields and they made no attempt of sweetening the pill or of trivializing the subject.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">To be honest, I wasn't sure that it would have worked. I was afraid that people would take the initiative as an excuse for a day of vacation; that they wouldn't show up, or show up and disappear shortly afterward. Or, if they were to stay, they would be bored to death and sleep throughout the day. I was even expecting that some idiot in the audience would stand up and say something like "don't you see how cold it is today? Climate change is a hoax!"<br /><br /><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gwQFil-tUAc/WEK77wF-gbI/AAAAAAAAREM/oEvEb6bbXjMCdgNNJxGR2M4PWTSSMcOgACLcB/s1600/UnifIFsostenibile.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gwQFil-tUAc/WEK77wF-gbI/AAAAAAAAREM/oEvEb6bbXjMCdgNNJxGR2M4PWTSSMcOgACLcB/s320/UnifIFsostenibile.jpg" width="320" /></a>But nothing like that happened. With a certain surprise on my part, the <i>aula magna</i> of the University of Florence was crammed full with some two hundred people, mostly university employees, but also students and faculty members. Most of them bravely sat through the 8 hours of talks, a remarkable feat (at some moments, some of them had to stand because there were not enough seats available). And not only they sat in the room; they listened to the talks. After much experience with public talks and lessons, I can sense whether the audience is attentive or not, and they were. They were not sleeping. Actually, I detected some closed eyes, occasionally, - it is normal. But, on the whole, I would say that they were more attentive than many of my students.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">We made no attempt of a formal evaluation of the results of this initiative, but I think I have sufficient informal feedback to be able to tell you that the message got through. Many people were not just interested, they were amazed. They had no idea that climate science was such a deep, wide, and fascinating field. They had never realized the extent of the threat we are facing.<br /><br />For me, as I said, it was an eye-opening experience that made me re-evaluate everything I knew about scientific communication. It made me understand how remote climate science is for the people who, really, suffer from an information deficit problem. Most people who are not scientists get their information from the mainstream media (MSM) and there are two problems with that: one is that they only get snippets and glimpses, drowned in the general noise of the news. The other, perhaps more important, is that they correctly mistrust the MSM. Yet, where else can they get information from? It is truly a deadly combination: bad information from a mistrusted source: any wonder that nobody is doing anything about climate change?<br /><br />And here comes the university; an institution full of problems but that's supposed to exist in order to create science and culture, not to make money. Because of this, it enjoys a certain prestige and, this time, it used it to do something right. It told to its employees, "we value you, so we offer to you our knowledge about climate science for free. We trust that you will appreciate it." And the employees responded by reciprocating the trust and appreciating this gift. Trust begets trust.<br /><br />I think this experience has a general value. It agrees with a fact that is described, for instance, by Ara Norenzayan in his book "<a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/10063.html">Big Gods</a>". Simply stated, people will believe a message if (and only if) they believe the messenger. So, no wonder that people are not much moved by the messages on climate change that they receive by the MSM - not only they are receiving a garbled message, they don't believe the messenger. But when they receive the message from a trusted institution and from people who, clearly, are doing their best to inform them, then they understand. It is not a question of volume, not a question of sweetening the pill, not a question of public relation strategies. It is a question of trust.<br /><br />And here lies the problem: we have squandered so much of the trust that the public had in its sources of information that we live squarely in an "<a href="http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.it/2016/02/the-empire-of-lies.html">Empire of Lies</a>". Will we ever be able to restore trust? Perhaps not impossible, but very, very difficult. Still, what the University of Florence did was a step in the right direction. Maybe it can be replicated and then, who knows?<br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">I would like to thank all those who participated in this information day as speakers or organizers, in alphabetic order.&nbsp;</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">Adele Bertini</span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">Marco Bindi</span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">Francesca Bigi </span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">Federico Brocchieri</span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">Stefano Caserini</span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">Gianfranco Cellai </span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">Sara Falsini</span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">Alessandro Galli </span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">Giovanni Pratesi </span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">Luca Toschi&nbsp;</span><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div></div>http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com/2016/12/climate-change-communication-trust.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ugo Bardi)5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4342811133328800388.post-6636382836895249932Thu, 01 Dec 2016 16:43:00 +00002016-12-01T08:43:35.441-08:00electionpeak oilTrumpThe Peak Oil Election<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-z14oqUlmJ0Y/WD6yf4j_8YI/AAAAAAAARC0/a8AxJqUOxfgAWEEe828VHyJz0TnN4jwKQCLcB/s1600/peakoil.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="220" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-z14oqUlmJ0Y/WD6yf4j_8YI/AAAAAAAARC0/a8AxJqUOxfgAWEEe828VHyJz0TnN4jwKQCLcB/s320/peakoil.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">The peak for conventional crude production arrived between 2008 and 2011. It seems that we passed the peak for "all liquids" in 2015, even though it will take some more time to be sure that an irreversible decline trend has started. Of course, reaching the peak has generated a vehement denial that the peak even exists. In this article, Eugene Marner comments on how and why the presidential elections completely ignored the hard facts of the declining net energy supply from fossil fuels.&nbsp; </span></i><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">(Image from "<a href="http://thevictoryreport.org/how-the-peak-oil-story-crashed-with-its-price/" target="_blank">The Victory Report</a>")</span></i></div><br /><br /><div><br /></div><div>From&nbsp;<a href="http://www.thedailystar.com/opinion/columns/availability-of-energy-will-dictate-future/article_4663a6fb-3478-56f7-9e67-9a9fca43a3b7.html" target="_blank">&nbsp;The Daily Star</a>, <b>by Eugene Marner</b><br /><br />Here in the USA, we held an election recently that left most surprised, many dismayed, and many others eager to explain what happened, why it happened and what we do now. Lots of deep thinking and heavy breathing have gone into those analyses and I don’t mean to compete here with students of history and politics. I would, however, like to offer what I think may be an important part of the context for recent events, a context that is defined and enforced by geology and physics. I suggest that the election of 2016 can be called the Peak Oil Election, although the issue certainly never came up in public.<br /><br />Back in November 2000, The Daily Star published a guest commentary in which I wrote about peak oil, the moment when global production of oil reaches its maximum and starts its inevitable decline. I had hoped to rouse people to think about the grave consequences that would ensue when oil, the key resource that fuels and supports our civilization, is no longer widely and cheaply available. Clearly that didn’t work very well, as most people still don’t have any idea what peak oil means, much less that its consequences are unfolding around us right now. No doubt our media, always complicit in a corporate agenda (oil companies are big advertisers), have not done much to inform the public but, more alarming than the blithe disregard of the population at large, is the apparently total cluelessness of both the two major presidential candidates and most of their advisers and entourages as well as the Congress. The Army Corps of Engineers issued a report back in September 2005 called Energy Trends and Implications for U.S. Army Installations that sounded the alarm about peak oil coming soon but that didn’t get much attention, either.<br /><br />The economy is widely acknowledged to be the critical factor in most elections. Both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, like most politicians everywhere, talked and continue to talk about “economic growth.” Voters can forgive scandals, bigotry, nastiness, stupidity and just about everything else but, when they see their standard of living falling, their jobs vanishing, their children with no future (and sometimes with nothing to eat), they blame politicians, rightly or wrongly. Politicians usually pretend to have solutions that almost always involve some path or other to “growth.”<br /><br />Although none of us alive today can remember a time when economic growth was not part of our expectation for the future, such growth has only been conceived of for about the last 200 years. Until fossil fuels became the energy that powered the Industrial Revolution, economies grew by making war on their neighbors and taking their wealth. That was the stuff of history: empires rose on the principal of capturing territory and exacting tribute and eventually collapsed under the weight of their military costs and the expense of hauling all the loot back home.<br /><br />Europeans had nearly exhausted the resources of their corner of the Eurasian landmass when Columbus came upon what was called the New World. Of course, it was just as old as every other place and, contrary to the persistent mythology, was not empty but chock full of animals, plants and, yes, many millions of human beings living in complex cultures. For the next three centuries, first the Spanish and Portuguese and, soon after, the Dutch, French and English crossed the Atlantic to subdue, conquer, and kill off the inhabitants in order, in traditional imperial fashion, to steal their stuff. Europe became rich again. That was how growth was done before about 1800 and the beginning of the fossil fuel age.<br /><br />From the beginning of the 19th century, the Industrial Revolution was powered by coal, which was dirty but had much higher energy content than wood and charcoal, the main fuels that humans had used until then. In 1859, a hustler who called himself “Colonel” Edwin Drake drilled the first commercially viable oil well in Titusville, Pennsylvania and the petroleum age began. Oil is an incomparable fuel: at the beginning it was easily extracted, easily transported and, best of all, a single gallon of oil contains as much energy as a fit man working hard for three months or about 700 men working for an hour. One gallon. That huge amount of energy suddenly available is what gave rise to what we now call “economic growth.” More production and consumption requires more energy inputs and oil made it possible. But on a finite planet, nothing can go on forever and, by the 1960s, oil companies were finding less new oil each year than we were burning. Thus, about 40 years later, peak oil. Coal and gas will continue to be available for a while, but both will start to decline within a decade or two. Both already have serious financial problems, and neither one can do what oil does.<br /><br />Let me return to why I called this the Peak Oil Election. Neither candidate spoke about it. Perhaps they don’t know about it. Or if they do, don’t want to believe it. Or maybe no politician can get elected by promising that the economy will continue to contract and energy supplies become ever scarcer. It was the Peak Oil Election because peak oil defeated both of them. Without increasing energy consumption, there can be no economic growth and, without increasing supplies, there can be no increase in energy consumption. The so-called renewables are hopelessly dependent upon fossil fuels for manufacture, installation and maintenance and are much less energy-intensive than fossil fuels.<br /><br />The fact is that because oil production cannot be increased, economic growth is now over. Donald Trump’s promise to bring back coal production, increase all fossil fuel extraction and rebuild manufacturing are simply not going to happen, not because of Trump but because policy is no longer in charge. From now on, geology and physics call the shots. The remaining oil is too expensive to get to and extract. Oil companies can’t make a profit at a price that customers in a contracting economy can afford to pay. The growth game is finished as will be soon the multitude of financial frauds that, starting with the peak of United States oil production in 1970, have come to comprise much of our economy.<br /><br />We need a new sort of politics and economy: local, cooperative, community-based, low-energy, conservationist, non-polluting, an economy that sustainably supports biological needs and health, rather than pursuing riches. I don’t think any politicians are going to do that for us; we need to do it for ourselves.<br /><br />In Genesis 3:19, God instructs Adam that his punishment for disobedience will be “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.” Apparently, humans didn’t like that very much, as all of history reveals them trying to get around that decree by any means possible: forcing others to do the work (slavery), getting rich and hiring others to do the work (wage slavery), or by burning oil (energy slavery). The time is here again for community cooperation, for low-tech solutions like the power of oxen, horses and mules, for relatively inexpensive simple technologies that can be made locally, like hoes, scythes, and pitchforks, and for the sweat of our faces. This isn’t a matter of virtue but of necessity; a simpler life is coming whether or not we choose to embrace it.<br /><br />Eugene Marner lives in Franklin.<br /><div class="row" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-left: -15px; margin-right: -15px;"><div class="col-lg-12 col-md-12 col-sm-12" data-subscription-required-class="col-xs-12" style="box-sizing: border-box; float: left; min-height: 1px; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px; position: relative; width: 780px;"><div class="asset-body" data-subscription-required-class="asset-body" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="asset-content subscriber-premium" itemprop="articleBody" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="tncms-region " id="tncms-region-article_instory_bottom" style="box-sizing: border-box;"></div></div><div class="share-container content-below" data-subscription-required-remove="" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 20px 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div></div>http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com/2016/12/the-peak-oil-election.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ugo Bardi)9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4342811133328800388.post-143090334949422565Sun, 27 Nov 2016 11:56:00 +00002016-11-27T10:11:22.578-08:00crude oilpeak oilreservesresourcesSeneca effectTiffany's fallacy: the mineral pie is shrinking, and most of what's left is in the sky<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-JJ6U_O5IPik/WDrD1C8hMMI/AAAAAAAARBY/Ozluqx50VsIKRUDfrIl22DQZIXnF5TYgACLcB/s1600/Tiffany.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="296" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-JJ6U_O5IPik/WDrD1C8hMMI/AAAAAAAARBY/Ozluqx50VsIKRUDfrIl22DQZIXnF5TYgACLcB/s400/Tiffany.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Audrey Hepburn in the 1961 movie: "Breakfast at Tiffany's." From the title of the film, I take the concept of "Tiffany's fallacy": it is not enough to see jewels on the other side of the window to have them. You have to pay for them. The same is true with mineral resources. There may be plenty of oil reserves on paper, but if you want them, you have to pay for their extraction. What follows is a slightly modified excerpt from my upcoming book "<a href="http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.it/2016/09/the-seneca-effect-soon-to-become-book.html" target="_blank">The Seneca Effect</a>."&nbsp; </i></span></div><br /><br />In the debates that deal with energy and fossil fuels, it is rather common to read or hear statements such as “oil will last for 50 years at the current rate of production.” You can also hear that “we still have one thousand years of coal” (Donald Trump stated exactly that during the US presidential campaign of 2016). When these statements are uttered at a conference, you can sometimes hear the sigh of relief of the audience, the more pronounced, the surer the speaker appears to be. This reaction is understandable if the assessment of a long duration of fossil fuels were to correspond to what we can expect for the future. But can we, really?<br /><br />The essence of propaganda, as it is well-known, is not so much telling lies, but presenting only one aspect of the truth. That's true also for the depletion debate. Saying that a certain resource will last decades, centuries, or more is not a lie, but not the truth, either. These numbers are based on only one aspect of the problem and on highly simplified assumptions. It is the concept of “reserves to production ratio” (R/P), a number that gives you a duration in years of the resource, supposing that the amount of reserves is known and that extraction will continue at the current rates. Normally, the results of these estimates have a comfortable ring to it. According to the 2016 BP report, the global R/P ratio for crude oil calculated for “proven reserves” was around 50 years, that for natural gas about the same, whereas coal was found to have an R/P ratio of more than a hundred years. If the “possible reserves” are added to the estimate, coal turns out to have an R/P ratio of the order one thousand years or even more.<br /><br />Most people understand from these data that there is nothing to be worried about oil for at least 50 years and, by then, it will be someone else's problem. And, if we really have a thousand years of coal, then what's the fuss about? Add to this the fact that the R/P ratio has been increasing over the years and you understand the reasons for a rather well-known statement by Peter Odell, who said in 2001 that we are “running into oil” rather than "running out" of it. In this vision, extracting a mineral resource is a little like eating a pie. As long as you have some pie left, there is nothing to be worried about. Actually, the peculiar pie that's crude oil has the characteristic that it becomes bigger as you eat it.<br /><br />If that sounds too good to you, you are right; this optimistic vision that sees mineral resources as a pie is also firmly placing it in the sky. Just to raise a nagging question, let me cite a report that appeared in 2016 on Bloomberg (not exactly a den of Cassandras), titled “<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-29/oil-discoveries-at-a-70-year-low-signal-a-supply-shortfall-ahead" target="_blank">”Oil Discoveries at a 70-year low</a>”.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nm1rc-9N1no/WDsGWSTI8WI/AAAAAAAARBo/Xar_m2Uu6aQsgWQBcKaG8M5AZZJLV-KoACLcB/s1600/Bloomberg.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="376" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nm1rc-9N1no/WDsGWSTI8WI/AAAAAAAARBo/Xar_m2Uu6aQsgWQBcKaG8M5AZZJLV-KoACLcB/s640/Bloomberg.png" width="640" /></a></div><br />The data show that the amount of oil discovered during the past decades is way below the amount that's being produced, an assessment that is not changed by <a href="http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.it/2016/11/peak-oil-in-fact-free-world-new-oil.html" target="_blank">some recent, much publicized and overemphasized, discoveries.</a>&nbsp;The situation is about the same with most mineral resources; the R/P ratios keep producing reassuring values: decades of availability, at least. But the number of discoveries keeps diminishing, well below the replacement rate that would be needed to keep production ongoing. See, for instance, this figure, courtesy of André Diederen<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7PfiPv_xeXQ/WDshUmn6PjI/AAAAAAAARCI/xqa9nq_ZKZoY-8WFxk5QyGEhB4FA1xV-ACLcB/s1600/Diederen.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="286" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7PfiPv_xeXQ/WDshUmn6PjI/AAAAAAAARCI/xqa9nq_ZKZoY-8WFxk5QyGEhB4FA1xV-ACLcB/s400/Diederen.png" width="400" /></a></div>So, what's going on, here? If these resources are there, how come that we can't find them? Is this a conspiracy of the oil companies to keep oil prices high? A hoax that the Greens propagate in order to get people to vote for them? An attempt by a cabal of evil scientists who are aiming at obtaining research grants for their depletion studies? If one of these is the case, the coalition of these mighty powers seems to have been especially inept because the past few years have seen oil prices collapsing. But the crude oil world is especially ripe with conspiracy theories; including the one that sees oil as “abiotic” and being continuously formed in enormous amounts in the depths of the Earth – a “fact” that everyone would know were it not for the conspiracy of the oil companies, the Greens, the scientists, etc. That's just one of the many legends pervading the Internet. Just one more expression of our teleological approach to problems that consists in finding evil human agents for explaining them.<br /><br />But there is no cabal, no hoax, no conspiracy in the estimates of oil and of other mineral resources. The problem is that using the R/P data to assess the future of mineral resources is misleading and it may easily lead you to a dangerous feeling of complacency. It is something that I call “Tiffany’s fallacy”. You probably remember the 1961 movie “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” that features the character played by Audrey Hepburn having breakfast while looking at the jewels on display in Tiffany’s windows. There is no doubt that there is plenty of gold on the other side of the glass, but it would be a fallacy to assume that one is rich just because of that. To get that gold, one must pay for it (or use dangerous and risky methods to get it). That’s the problem with the industry statistical estimates of “reserves.” These reserves are there, probably, but it takes money (and a lot of it) to find them, extract them, and process them. And it is not just a question of money, it takes material resources to extract minerals: drills, trucks, rigs, and every sort of equipment, including transportation and, of course, people able to use all of it. These are things that cannot simply be printed or obtained by magic financial tricks such as “quantitative easing”.<br /><br />Mineral resources are nothing like a pie that you can eat until you have some of it. They are more like Tiffany's jewelry that you may get only if you have the money to pay for it. And the price of any commodity is directly related to its cost. It costs money to produce anything and nothing is produced if it can’t return a profit when it is sold on the market. So, in the case of minerals, extraction costs keep increasing because, of course, we extract the cheapest resources first. At some moment, we may find that we cannot afford anymore to pay for these costs. And when something costs more than what you can afford, you may as well say that you "ran out" of it, no matter what you read in terms of reserves that should exist somewhere underground.&nbsp; The mineral pie is shrinking and most of what's left is in the sky.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com/2016/11/tiffanys-fallacy-mineral-pie-is.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ugo Bardi)6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4342811133328800388.post-7907818240431000610Tue, 22 Nov 2016 13:44:00 +00002016-11-22T08:58:42.047-08:00fact-free societypeak oilpermian basinUSGSPeak Oil in a Fact-Free World: the New "Oil Bonanza" in West Texas<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-TYk-lrEfbBY/WDRLZe_FuvI/AAAAAAAAQ_4/lKtpv5I7NzUdMhXdDgOKVEyaq56uGBWrgCLcB/s1600/WilyCoyoteThinAir.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-TYk-lrEfbBY/WDRLZe_FuvI/AAAAAAAAQ_4/lKtpv5I7NzUdMhXdDgOKVEyaq56uGBWrgCLcB/s400/WilyCoyoteThinAir.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Sometimes, I have the feeling of living in a fact-free universe where the laws of physics hold only if you believe in them. (<a href="https://bareknuckle.org/2014/09/22/wile-e-coyote-super-spiritual/" target="_blank">image</a>)</i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><br /></i></div><br /><br />So, the<a href="https://www.usgs.gov/news/usgs-estimates-20-billion-barrels-oil-texas-wolfcamp-shale-formation" target="_blank"> USGS comes out with a press release</a> that the media immediately diffuse in terms of a great discovery: 20 billion barrels, somewhere in Texas in a place called "Wolfcamp".&nbsp; Bloomberg multiplies the number by the current oil price and comes up with a title that reads: "<a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-15/permian-s-wolfcamp-holds-20-billion-barrels-of-oil-u-s-says" target="_blank">A $900 billion Oil Treasure,</a>" for a piece that tells of "bonanza" and of "the gift that keeps on giving". USA today speaks of "<a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/nation-now/2016/11/17/usgs-largest-oil-deposit-ever-found-us-discovered-texas/94013292/" target="_blank">The Largest Oil Deposit Ever Found in the US</a>". And how about the comments? Just a few examples.<br /><br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><i><span class="_5mdd">As our new President will do - DRILL BABY DRILL!!! Energy independence - that sure has a nice ring to it. Middle finger to Middle East arabs. </span></i></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><i>... </i></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><i><span class="_5mdd">I remember in the late 70's when scientists said we would be running out of oil by the late 90's. I wonder where those scientists are working now? Climate change?</span></i></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><i>... </i></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><i><span class="_5mdd">They are constantly finding more reserves. President Trump will open up more land and ocean for safe drilling. Something the Obama administration had no clue how to do..</span></i></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><i>&nbsp;...</i></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><i><span class="_5mdd">but of course the Radical Left, determined to return all of western civilization to the hunter-gatherer society of 10,000 years ago will do all it can to prevent this once great nation from becoming energy dependent and permanently kicking the barbarian raghead arab oil nations out of this country.</span></i> </blockquote><br /><br />Great fun, and all fact-free! But let's suppose, for once, that facts mattered. What should we say about the "Largest Oil Deposit Ever Found in the US"? One point is that nothing new was "found;" the Wolfcamp formation was well known and already being exploited. The USGS just made a new estimate; probably valid within the assumptions made; but <b>it is just that: an <i>estimate.</i> It doesn't mean that these resources have been discovered</b> (note that the <a href="https://www.usgs.gov/news/usgs-estimates-20-billion-barrels-oil-texas-wolfcamp-shale-formation" target="_blank">USGS explicitly says "undiscovered</a>.") So, what all this means is that, statistically, these resources should be there, but nobody can be completely sure and it wouldn't be the first time that these estimates turn out to be optimistic. (in this case, the round number "20" is more than a little suspicious).<br /><br />But never mind that; let's assume that these 20 billion barrels are there for real. How does this amount stack up in comparison with the world's oil situation? Here are some data, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-29/oil-discoveries-at-a-70-year-low-signal-a-supply-shortfall-ahead" target="_blank">taken from Bloomberg</a> (not exactly a den of Cassandras).<br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/--rpMD9_shNQ/WDRCaNLLzmI/AAAAAAAAQ_o/7PehtuT2UTc2sxfG-L9cm59HpeUqXs2RACLcB/s1600/OilDiscoveriesBloomberg.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="376" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/--rpMD9_shNQ/WDRCaNLLzmI/AAAAAAAAQ_o/7PehtuT2UTc2sxfG-L9cm59HpeUqXs2RACLcB/s640/OilDiscoveriesBloomberg.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><br />Let's compare these data with the world's oil consumption that, according to "<a href="http://www.indexmundi.com/energy/" target="_blank">Index Mundi</a>," is today a little more than 33 billion barrels per year. So, you see from the figure that, during the past decade at least, we have been consistently burning more oil than we could discover. Now, if there had been other major discoveries this year, they would have been trumpeted enough that we would know of them. So, adding the 20 billion barrels of the Wolfcamp formation to the meager total of 2016, probably, we still don't reach a total of 33 billion. In the end, all that we can say is that<b>, for this year, oil discoveries were just a little less, rather than much less, than what the world has consumed</b>. These would be the news, if facts mattered.<br /><br />But, that's not even the point: the essence of depletion is not how much of it there is, it is how much it costs to extract it. Here, <a href="http://www.artberman.com/permian-giant-oil-field-would-lose-500-billion-at-todays-prices/" target="_blank">Arthur Berman notes</a> that Bloomberg had calculated the value of this "treasure" at $900 billion as if <i>"if the oil magically leaped out of the ground without the cost of drilling and completing wells; if there were no operating costs to produce it; if there were no taxes&nbsp;and no royalties.</i>" Then, Berman calculates how much it would cost to extract all this "bonanza" of oil and concludes that, at the current prices, <b>it would result in a net loss of some $500 billion.&nbsp;</b><br /><br />So, aren't you happy to live in a fact-free world? You can keep thinking that it is enough to poke a few holes in the ground to see it gush out in never ending abundance because, as everyone knows, it is really "<a href="http://energyskeptic.com/2016/abiotic-oil-theory-and-its-implications-for-peak-oil/" target="_blank">abiotic</a>." Sure, and you can also walk on thin air, as Wile E. Coyote can do as long as he doesn't realize he does.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com/2016/11/peak-oil-in-fact-free-world-new-oil.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ugo Bardi)13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4342811133328800388.post-2104818361299782708Fri, 18 Nov 2016 17:59:00 +00002016-11-18T12:27:06.553-08:00complex systemsjay forrestersystem dynamicsthe limits to growthJay Forrester: the man who saw the future <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-rsolizzybEA/WC9DFjIILBI/AAAAAAAAQ-M/VFs0TtMZ-BM0uMxIwyBWK4BXHNRdrWv0ACLcB/s1600/Trantor005.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="227" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-rsolizzybEA/WC9DFjIILBI/AAAAAAAAQ-M/VFs0TtMZ-BM0uMxIwyBWK4BXHNRdrWv0ACLcB/s320/Trantor005.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Jay Wright Forrester (1918-2016) may have been the source of inspiration for Hari Seldon, a fictional character in Isaac Asimov's Foundation series. In Asimov's novels, Seldon develops "pyschohistoric equations" that allow him to predict the impending collapse of the Galactic Empire. In the real world, Forrester developed "system dynamics equations" that allowed him to predict the impending collapse of the modern human civilization. The predictions were ignored by the Imperial powers of both the fictional and the real universe.</i></span> </div><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_Q0BS8weQJY/WC89k_UonbI/AAAAAAAAQ94/nTm3FxjxtHgSh3f_68lfah9-IHfZkifMgCLcB/s1600/18Forrester-obit2-master315.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_Q0BS8weQJY/WC89k_UonbI/AAAAAAAAQ94/nTm3FxjxtHgSh3f_68lfah9-IHfZkifMgCLcB/s200/18Forrester-obit2-master315.jpg" width="150" /></a>Jay Forrester, one of the great minds of the 20th century, died at 98, a few days ago. His career was long and fruitful, and we can say that his work changed the intellectual story of humankind in various ways, in particular for the role he had in the birth of the Club of Rome's report "The Limits to Growth"<br /><br />In 1969, Forrester was a faculty member of the MIT when he met Aurelio Peccei in Italy. At that time, Peccei had already founded the Club of Rome, whose members were worried about the limits to the natural resources that the Earth could provide. They were trying to understand what the consequences would have been for humankind. From what Peccei wrote, it seems clear that he was seeing the situation mostly in Malthusian terms; thinking that the human population would have been growing until reaching the resource limits, and then stay there, kept in check by famines and epidemics. The main concern of Peccei and of the Club of Rome was to avoid human suffering by ensuring a fair distribution of what was available.<br /><br />The encounter with Forrester changed this vision in ways that, perhaps, neither Peccei nor any of the Club members would have imagined. In the 1960s, Forrester's models were already well advanced. Based on a completely new method of calculation that Forrester had dubbed "system dynamics," the models were able to take into account how the many variables of a complex system interacted with each other and changed in time.<br /><br />The result was the study that the Club of Rome commissioned to Forrester and to his research group: simulate the future of humankind over a time range of more than a century, all the way to 2100. Forrester himself prepared a complete study with the title "World Dynamics" that was published in 1971. A group of Forrester's students and coworkers prepared a more extensive study titled "The Limits to Growth" that became a true intellectual revolution in 1972.<br /><br />Forrester's system dynamics provided results that proved that Malthus had been an optimist. Far from reaching the limits to growth and staying there, as Malthus had imagined, the human civilization was to overshoot the limits and keep growing, only to crash down, badly, afterward. The problem was not just that of a fair distribution of the available resources, but to avoid the collapse of the whole human civilization. The calculations showed that it was possible, but that it required stopping economic growth. That was something that nobody, then as now, couldn't even imagine to do.<br /><br />You know how things went: I told the story in my book "<a href="https://books.google.it/books?id=Gj0RmQWGfXcC&amp;printsec=frontcover&amp;dq=Ugo+Bardi+the+limits+to+growth+revisited&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=0ahUKEwj1y8LX8LLQAhUKkRQKHdJdDloQ6AEIHTAA#v=onepage&amp;q=Ugo%20Bardi%20the%20limits%20to%20growth%20revisited&amp;f=false" target="_blank">The Limits to Growth Revisited</a>". Forrester's work was mostly ignored, but the better known "The Limits to Growth" study was not only rejected; it was actively demonized. <a href="http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.it/2011/09/cassandras-curse-how-limits-to-growth.html" target="_blank">The legend of the "wrong predictions"</a> of the study was created and it spread so much that it is still widely believed. Yet, the intellectual revolution that was the creation of System Dynamics never died out completely and, today, <a href="http://www.medeas.eu/" target="_blank">world modeling</a> is returning. We need to study the future in these times of great uncertainty. It is difficult, unrewarding, and often leading us astray. But we must keep trying.<br /><br />Perhaps of Forrester's unknown achievement was of having inspired Isaac Asimov for the character of "Hari Seldon" in the famous "Foundation" series that Asimov wrote starting in the 1950s. We have no proof that Asimov ever met Forrester or knew his work, but they both lived in Boston at the same time, so it is at least possible. Then, Hari Seldon and Jay Forrester share similar traits: both are scientists who develop powerful methods for prediction the future. Seldon develops a field known as "Psychohistory" while Forrester developed "System Dynamics." In both cases, the equations predict that civilization will undergo a collapse. In both cases, the scientists are not believed by the Imperial authorities of their times, fictional or real.<br /><br />In Asimov's story, Seldon goes on to create "Foundation" a planet where the achievements of civilization are kept alive and will be used to rebuild a new civilization after that the collapse of the old one. The plan succeeds in Asimov's fictional universe. In our case, the real Earth of the 21st century, nobody seems to have been able to create a safe haven for the achievements of civilization that we can use after the collapse. Seeing how things stand, maybe it is the only hope left?<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i> </i></span>But, maybe, Asimov wasn't directly inspired by Forrester for his Hari Seldon. Maybe he was just inspired by the archetype of the wise man that, in human history, has been played by people such as Merlin, Laozi, Kong Fuzi, Prince Gautama, Socrates, and many others. Perhaps Jay Forrester deserves to be listed among these wise men of old. Perhaps, the wisdom that Forrester brought to us will come handy in the difficult future that awaits us.<br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">Forrester's achievements are many besides those of World Modeling. He developed a completely new magnetic computer memory that became the world standard, he developed a complete programming language (called "dynamo"), he is the originator of several fundamental ideas in system management: the "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullwhip_effect" target="_blank">bullwhip effect</a>," the concept of "Urban Dynamics"; of "Industrial Dynamics" of the "leverage points" in complex systems, and much more. A true genius of our times.&nbsp;</span><br /><br /><br /></div>http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com/2016/11/jay-forrester-man-who-saw-future.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ugo Bardi)10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4342811133328800388.post-3275590456766561152Wed, 16 Nov 2016 18:53:00 +00002016-11-17T06:06:54.582-08:00deglobalizationscenariostransitionTrumpTrump: on the way to "Scenario 3" and the end of globalization<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /><div class="western" lang="en-US" style="line-height: 108%; margin-bottom: 0.11in;"><b><br /></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-lno55Ow50LQ/WCyoRcHas0I/AAAAAAAAQ7o/ObXb_rM2ARg2EmnI5Fs1C-FmAe7GP5JJACLcB/s1600/Wolim.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="316" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-lno55Ow50LQ/WCyoRcHas0I/AAAAAAAAQ7o/ObXb_rM2ARg2EmnI5Fs1C-FmAe7GP5JJACLcB/s640/Wolim.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="western" lang="en-US" style="line-height: 108%; margin-bottom: 0.11in;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Margarita Mediavilla and her coworkers have performed extensive simulations of the future using system dynamics models, (see <a href="http://www.eis.uva.es/energiasostenible/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/AAManuscript_Capell%C3%A1n-P%C3%A9rez_2014.pdf" target="_blank">here)</a>. One of their scenarios, called "Scenario 3," is based on the hypothesis of a return to national competition, protectionism, deglobalization, and the like. In comparison to other scenarios, Scenario 3 is the least expensive in terms of the energy required, but also the most environmentally damaging. And, with Trump's election, it seems that we are heading exactly in that direction. What else would you have expected? (UB)</i></span></div><div class="western" lang="en-US" style="line-height: 108%; margin-bottom: 0.11in;"><br /></div><div class="western" lang="en-US" style="line-height: 108%; margin-bottom: 0.11in;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">&nbsp;</span>By Margarita Mediavilla</i></div><div class="western" lang="en-US" style="line-height: 108%; margin-bottom: 0.11in;">The victory of Donald Trump, as well as so many things that have been happening in recent years (the rise of the extreme right wing in Europe, the fall of Asian trade, the Brexit, the war in Syria and Yemen), shows that we are following the path of what we called Scenario 3. It could not be in a different way since our “scenarios” were narratives that we used to glimpse the future, and the energy told us that Scenario 3 was the most realistic one.<br /><br />Scenarios are a quite common tool used by the United Nations and other international agencies to look at the future of humanity, they are used to group their reflections around coherent visions. We call Scenario 3 one of these archetypal visions that create the international agencies<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4342811133328800388#sdfootnote1sym">1</a> and we used in our studies that compare the available fossil fuels subject to peak oil with the expected demand of energy<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4342811133328800388#sdfootnote2sym">2</a>.<br /><br />Scenario 3 describes a future of regional competition and return to national sovereignty. It assumes that regions will focus more on their self-reliance, national sovereignty, and regional identity, leading to tensions between regions and/or cultures. Countries will be concerned with security and protection, emphasizing primarily regional markets (protectionism, deglobalization) and paying little attention to common goods, international environmental agreements, and cooperation for development. Scenario 3 describes a future of deglobalization and conflict, it and is, to a large extent, Trump's conservative discourse.<br /><br />Other scenarios, such as Scenario 1, talk about economic optimism and high growth. The humanity is focused on achieving competitive markets and free trade that would, eventually, benefit everyone by correcting social inequalities and environmental problems. Scenario 1 is the scenario of globalization. There is also a Scenario 2, the one of green capitalism, a friendly version of Scenario 1, which gives priority to protecting the environment and reducing inequality, using technological advances, dematerialization, and the economy of services and information.<br /><br />There is a fourth scenario at stake,Scenario 4, which consists of a friendly version of Scenario 3. In Scenario 4 there is a major change in values: society reacts against nonsense consumerism and disrespect for life. Citizens and countries decide to assume their responsibilities by being a green example for the rest. Although barriers to trade of goods are rebuilt, barriers to information tend to be eliminated. The emphasis is on finding regional solutions to social and environmental problems, usually by combining drastic changes in lifestyles with decentralized governance styles. Scenario 4 is the ecologist scenario, the one of local autonomy, cooperation and open-source, the closest to the utopias of the Degrowth movement.<br /><br />The problem is that Scenarios 1 and 2 require a lot of energy, while Scenario is the one that needs less energy because it has less trade and less economic growth. Scenario 4 is also a low energy one. The bad news is that Scenario 3 is blind to environmental problems and leads to the war for resources because there is no lifestyle change towards an austere society based on renewable energy. Only Scenario 4 could be a minimally sustainable one because is the only one that invests in the energy of the future and does not grow a lot.<br /><br />Trump's victory, like so many other things, shows us that the business as usual options are no longer what we used to call business as usual. We can no longer choose between neoliberal globalization or a slightly more social globalization of sustainable development. In a world where the energy is getting more and more difficult to obtain those scenarios that minimize energy consumption are the ones that have more probabilities of becoming true. Now the only possible options are Scenario 3 (neocons, right-wing) or those that could arise from Scenario 4 (anti-consumerist movements and ecosocialism).<br /><br /><br />The traditional political left parties should wake up and stop pursuing futures that resemble Scenario 2 and seek a slightly more friendly or greener globalization. Only the political options that are well aware of the planet's ecological limits can be a solid discourse against neoconservatives. In this moment we need to develop a political alternative based on anti-consumerist values, on the defense of the land and on the values of cooperation. Only this alternative can compensate self-destructive neoconservative tendencies that lead us to a dangerous competition for the resources in a planet that is going on a trend of constant ecological degradation.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">Margarita Mediavilla teaches at&nbsp; the School of Industrial Engineering of the University of Valladolid and belongs to the <a href="http://www.eis.uva.es/energiasostenible/?lang=en" target="_blank">research group of Energy, Economy and System Dynamics (GEEDS)</a> She is also engaged in the EU research project <a href="http://www.medeas.eu/" target="_blank">MEDEAS</a> dedicated to modeling the energy transition in Europe. </span><br /><br /><br /></div><div id="sdfootnote1"><div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; page-break-before: always;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a class="sdfootnotesym" href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4342811133328800388#sdfootnote1anc" name="sdfootnote1sym">1</a><sup> </sup><span lang="es-ES"> Van Vuuren, D.P., Kok, M.T.J., Girod, B., Lucas, P.L., de Vries, B., 2012. </span>Scenarios in Global Environmental Assessments: Key characteristics and lessons for future use. Global Environmental Change 22, 884–895. doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2012.06.001</span></div></div><div id="sdfootnote2"><div lang="en-US" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; page-break-before: always;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a class="sdfootnotesym" href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4342811133328800388#sdfootnote2anc" name="sdfootnote2sym">2</a><sup> </sup> Capellán-Pérez I, Mediavilla M, de Castro C, et al (2014a) Fossil fuel depletion and socio-economic scenarios: An integrated approach. Energy 77:641–666. doi: 10.1016/j.energy.2014.09.063</span></div></div></div>http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com/2016/11/trump-on-way-to-scenario-3.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ugo Bardi)5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4342811133328800388.post-6532576521831934647Sat, 12 Nov 2016 14:31:00 +00002016-11-13T05:23:11.212-08:00climate changeempire of liesTrumptruthTrump: the Defeat of the Empire of Lies<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-OqZ-GCnAcs4/WCcjy6TTynI/AAAAAAAAQ7Q/qLytEKIBcDgmsVkO0cLt3eQqnqXPM1ORQCLcB/s1600/cv-lies.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="129" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-OqZ-GCnAcs4/WCcjy6TTynI/AAAAAAAAQ7Q/qLytEKIBcDgmsVkO0cLt3eQqnqXPM1ORQCLcB/s200/cv-lies.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>In 2003, the Western Media were able to convince almost everyone that the evil dictator Saddam Hussein was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The success of this propaganda operation was so spectacular that it led one of the aides of George W. Bush to declare that <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality-based_community">"now we create our own reality</a>." It was the true founding statement of the Empire of Lies.<br /><br />But the power of creation does not reside with mere human beings and it may well be that the Gods took umbrage at this manifestation of hubris. During the latest US presidential campaign, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin were lumped together and subjected to the same demonizing treatment that earlier on had been reserved to Saddam Hussein. But, simply, it didn't work. The whole campaign backfired, badly. The extent of the defeat that the Empire of Lies suffered is staggering.<br /><br />Unfortunately, the fact that Donald Trump was elected largely as a reaction against previous lies doesn't make him a good president and not even someone whom we can trust. We may have learned to recognize lies, but it seems that we haven't yet learned to recognize the truth. The pendulum may be swinging too far and we are now branding perfectly correct theories as hoaxes and conspiracies. This is the case of climate change, that Donald Trump has defined as a hoax. The extent of the damage that the Trump presidency could do to humankind by policies that ignore the climate threat is staggering, too.<br /><br />So, will we ever learn to find our way in the universe of lies in which we live? Difficult to say, but we live in a condition in which the ancient Romans already found themselves long ago. The post below, published early this year, may help us to understand the problem.<br /><br /><br /><br /><h2 class="date-header" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 0px; position: relative;"><span style="color: #666666; letter-spacing: 3px; margin: inherit; padding: 0.4em;">From "<a href="http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.ch/2016/02/the-empire-of-lies.html">Cassandra's Legacy</a>", Monday, February 8, 2016</span></h2><div class="date-posts"><div class="post-outer"><div class="post hentry uncustomized-post-template" style="margin: 0px 0px 45px; min-height: 0px; position: relative;"><span style="font-family: &quot;trebuchet ms&quot; , &quot;trebuchet&quot; , &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16.8px;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="4659918859903003240"></a></span></span><br /><h3 class="post-title entry-title" style="background-color: white; font-family: &quot;Trebuchet MS&quot;, Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0.75em 0px 0px; position: relative;">The Empire of Lies</h3><div class="post-header" style="background-color: white; font-family: &quot;Trebuchet MS&quot;, Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10.8px; line-height: 1.6; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><div class="post-header-line-1"></div></div><div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-4659918859903003240" style="position: relative; width: 706px;"><div dir="ltr"><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: &quot;Trebuchet MS&quot;, Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 1.4; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-v4PkDDzyrxQ/Vq3pRB1W2vI/AAAAAAAAPpo/_aTga1VkL2c/s1600/trajan-s-column-rome.jpg" style="color: #888888; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-v4PkDDzyrxQ/Vq3pRB1W2vI/AAAAAAAAPpo/_aTga1VkL2c/s400/trajan-s-column-rome.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.0980392) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="265" /></a></div><br /><div style="background-color: white; font-family: &quot;Trebuchet MS&quot;, Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 1.4; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>The Trajan Column was built in order to celebrate the victories of the Roman Armies in&nbsp;<a href="http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.it/2014/02/gold-and-beast-brief-history-roman.html" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;">the conquest of Dacia</a>, during the 2nd century AD. It shows that the Romans knew and used propaganda, although in forms that for us look primitive. In those times, just as in ours, a dying empire could be kept together for a while by lies, but not forever. &nbsp;</i></span></div><br /><br /><br />At the beginning of the 5th century AD, Augustine, bishop of Hippo, wrote his "De Mendacio" ("On Lying"). Reading it today, we may be surprised at how rigid and strict Augustine was in his conclusions. A Christian, according to him, could not lie in any circumstances whatsoever; not even to save lives or to avoid suffering for someone. The suffering of the material body, said Augustine, is nothing; what's important is one's immortal soul. Later theologians substantially softened these requirements, but there was a logic in Augustine's stance if we consider his times: the last century of the Western Roman Empire.<br /><br />By the time of Augustine, the Roman Empire had become an Empire of lies. It still pretended to uphold the rule of law, to protect the people from the Barbarian invaders, to maintain the social order. But all that had become a bad joke for the citizens of an empire by then reduced to nothing more than a giant military machine dedicated to oppressing the poor in order to maintain the privileges of the rich. The Empire itself had become a lie: that it existed because of the favor of the Gods who rewarded the Romans because of their moral virtues. Nobody could believe in that anymore: it was the breakdown of the very fabric of society; the loss of what the ancient called the auctoritas, the trust that citizens had toward their leaders and the institutions of their state.<br /><br />Augustine was reacting to all this. He was trying to rebuild the "auctoritas", not in the form of mere authoritarianism of an oppressive government, but in the form of trust. So, he was appealing to the highest authority of all, God himself. He was also building his argument on the prestige that the Christians had gained at a very high price with their martyrs. And not just that. In his texts, and in particular in his "Confessions" Augustine was opening himself completely to his readers; telling them all of his thoughts and his sins in minute details. It was, again, a way to rebuild trust by showing that one had no hidden motives. And he had to be strict in his conclusions. He couldn't leave any openings that would permit the Empire of Lies to return.<br /><br />Augustine and other early Christian fathers were engaged, first of all, in an epistemological revolution. Paulus of Tarsus had already understood this point when he had written: "now we see as in a mirror, darkly, then we'll see face to face." It was the problem of truth; how to see it? How to determine it? In the traditional view, truth was reported by a witness who could be trusted. The Christian epistemology started from that, to build up the concept of truth as the result of divine revelation. The Christians were calling God himself as witness. It was a spiritual and philosophical vision, but also a very down-to-earth one. Today, we would say that the Christians of late Roman times were engaged in "relocalization", abandoning the expensive and undefendable structures of the old Empire to rebuild a society based on local resources and local governance. The age that followed, the Middle Ages, can be seen as a time of decline but it was, rather, a necessary adaptation to the changed economic conditions. Eventually, all societies must come to terms with Truth. The Western Roman Empire could not do that, It had to disappear, it was unavoidable.<br /><br />Now, let's move forward to our times and we have reached our empire of lies. On the current situation, I don't have to tell you anything that you don't already know. During the past few decades, the mountain of lies tossed at us by governments has been perfectly matched by the disastrous loss of trust in our leaders on the part of the citizens. When the Soviets launched their first orbiting satellite, the Sputnik, in 1957, nobody doubted that it was for real and the reaction of the US government was to launch their own satellites. Today, plenty of people even deny that the US sent men to the moon in the 1960s. They may be ridiculed, they may be branded as conspiracy theorists, sure, but they are there. Perhaps the watershed of this collapse of trust was with the story of the "Weapons of Mass Destruction" that we were told were hidden in Iraq. It was not their first, nor it will be their last, lie. But how can you ever trust an institution that lied to you so brazenly? (and that continue to do so?)<br /><br />Today, every statement from a government, or from an even remotely "official" source, seems to generate a parallel and opposite statement of denial. Unfortunately, the opposite of a lie is not necessarily the truth, and that has originated baroque castles of lies, counter-lies, and counter-counter lies. Think of the story of the 9/11 attacks in New York. Somewhere, hidden below the mass of legends and myths that have piled up on this story, there has to be the truth; some kind of truth. But how to find it when you can't trust anything you read on the Web? Or think of peak oil. At the simplest level of conspiratorial interpretation, peak oil can be seen as a reaction to the lies of oil companies that hide the depletion of their resources. But you may also see peak oil as a scam created by oil companies that try to hide the fact that their resources are actually abundant - even infinite in the diffuse legend of "abiotic oil". But, for others, the idea that peak oil is a scam created in order to hide abundance may be a higher order scam created in order to hide scarcity. Eve higher order conspiracy theories are possible. It is a fractal universe of lies, where you have no reference point to tell you where you are.<br /><br />Eventually, it is a problem of epistemology. The same that goes back to Pontius Pilate's statement "what is truth?" Where are we supposed to find truth in our world? Perhaps in science? But science is rapidly becoming a marginal sect of people who mumble of catastrophes to come. People whom nobody believes any longer after they failed to deliver their promises of energy too cheap to meter, space travel, and flying cars. Then, we tend to seek it in such things as "democracy" and to believe that a voting majority somehow defines "truth". But democracy has become a ghost of itself: how can citizens make an informed choice after that we discovered the concept that we call "perception management" (earlier on called "propaganda")?<br /><br />Going along a trajectory parallel to that of the ancient Romans, we haven't yet arrived at having a semi-divine emperor residing in Washington D.C., considered by law to be the repository of divine truth. And we aren't seeing yet a new religion taking over and expelling the old ones. At present, the reaction against the official lies takes mostly the form of what we call "conspiratorial attitude." Although widely despised, conspirationism is not necessarily wrong;<a href="http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.it/2015/10/when-conspiracy-is-not-theory-example.html"> conspiracies do exist</a> and much of the misinformation that spreads over the web must be created by someone who is conspiring against us. The problem is that conspirationism is not a form of epistemology. Once you have decided that everything you read is part of the great conspiracy, then you have locked yourself in an epistemological box and thrown away the key. And, like Pilate, you can only ask "what is truth?", but you will never find it.<br /><br />Is it possible to think of an "epistemology 2.0" that would allow us to regain trust on the institutions and on our fellow human beings? Possibly, yes but, right now, we are seeing as in a mirror, darkly. Something is surely stirring, out there; but it has not yet taken a recognizable shape. Maybe it will be a new ideal, maybe a revisitation of an old religion, maybe a new religion, maybe a new way of seeing the world. We cannot say which form the new truth will take, but we can say that nothing new can be born without the death of something. And that all births are painful but necessary.</div></div></div></div></div></div>http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com/2016/11/trump-defeat-of-empire-of-lies.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ugo Bardi)18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4342811133328800388.post-7414434944192316637Thu, 10 Nov 2016 17:23:00 +00002016-11-10T09:25:04.284-08:00BerlusconiTrumpTrump, Berlusconi, and the Blob<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /><div class="post-title entry-title" style="text-align: left;"><i>This post was published nearly one year ago on Cassandra's Legacy,<a href="http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.de/2015/12/trump-berlusconi-and-blob-strategy.html"> on Dec 11, 2015. </a>It didn't prophesize the election of Donald Trump, but it outlined the main elements that made his election possible. (UB)</i></div><div class="post-title entry-title" style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="post-header"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-CY35c_B_p1M/VmqXnexUtYI/AAAAAAAAPd8/R2q0PRTKT9g/s1600/TheBlob.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-CY35c_B_p1M/VmqXnexUtYI/AAAAAAAAPd8/R2q0PRTKT9g/s400/TheBlob.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">For about twenty years, Mr. Silvio Berlusconi has been the blob of Italian politics, absorbing everything thrown at him and transforming it into votes. Now, Mr. Trump seems to be using the same strategy in the US.&nbsp;</span></i></div><br /><br />Watching the news about the presidential race in the US from Italy gives you an eerie sensation of familiarity. This Donald Trump, he looks so much like.... yes, so much like a new incarnation of the concept of the billionaire turned politician: Silvio Berlusconi.<br /><br />If you haven't lived in Italy during the past 20 years, it is hard for you to understand how much the figure of Silvio Berlusconi has permeated Italian politics and culture. When Berlusconi started his political career, in 1994, it would have appeared utterly impossible that a billionaire and a womanizer would dominate Italian politics so much and for such a long time. Berlusconi was not a nice guy, never tried even to look like one. He was by no means the kind of figure that had traditionally attracted votes. He didn't have a party behind him; no clear ideals, no political ideology, no detailed economics program, nothing like that. Yet, he was successful and the only reason why by now he is not in active politics any more is because of his age (he'll be soon turning 80).<br /><br />How did Berlusconi manage to be so successful? We can summarize his strategy in a few points:<br /><br />1. Exaggerated promises; such as "a million new jobs," or, "lower taxes for everyone".<br /><br />2. Demonization of enemies: reds, gypsies, immigrants; these ethnic or political groups were continuously under attack, accused to be the origin of all troubles.<br /><br />3. Continuous media presence. Berlusconi was a true genius in how to obtain media coverage, and not just because he owned a major media group. He obtained attention by all sorts of reckless behavior and outrageous declarations. Berlusconi's sexual exploits are well known and, among his most outrageous declarations, he compared himself to Jesus Christ, and he said that those who didn't vote for him were idiots.<br /><br />This combination worked wonders: Berlusconi's electoral pool was, as he himself said, with "<i>people at the level of the second year of junior high school.</i>" He ruthlessly exploited their increasing economic difficulties; many people really believed in his promises, failing to notice that they consistently failed to materialize. He played on their desperation, funneling their rage against minority groups. He dazzled them with his flamboyant lifestyle: many people seemed to believe that if they voted for him, they could become like him, and have money, glamor and women.<br /><br />Berlusconi's opponents never understood that mounting their campaigns against him, they were working for him, helping him gaining even more media attention. Over and over they underestimated him, considering him just a fad, soon destined to disappear, only to find him bouncing back, stronger than before. He became a true political blob, absorbing everything thrown at him and transforming it into consensus and votes.<br /><br />Today, we can recognize the same tactics being used in the US by Donald Trump, another billionaire turned politician. Like Berlusconi, he makes the same kind of exaggerated promises ("make America great again"), he demonizes minorities (Latinos, Moslems, Blacks...) and he is a master in getting media attention by is outrageous declarations.<br /><br />So, we are seeing the birth of another political blob: like Berlusconi, also Trump seems to be able to absorb everything thrown at him and turn it into consensus. And his opponents seem to be failing into the same trap that Berlusconi created for his opponents. They don't realize that by mounting their campaigns against Trump, they are working for him, helping him to gain even more notoriety.<br /><br />So, what's going to happen? Is Donald Trump destined to shape American politics for a couple of decades, as Berlusconi did in Italy? Of course, it is impossible to say with any certainty and it is true that there are differences; for instance, Trump doesn't own a large media group, as Berlusconi did. Trump is also starting his political career at nearly 70, about ten years older than when Berlusconi did the same. So, there is a chance that Trump will be less successful than Berlusconi.<br /><br />However, we are clearly seeing a problem with democracy. When times are tough and life becomes difficult, many people tend to blame someone - typically a different ethnic or political group, and to become desperate enough to believe in the promises of the current would-be savior of the country. It is enough, often, to send him to power. It has happened many times in the past, and the results have never been good.<br /><br /><br /><br /><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Note: similar considerations on the Trump/Berlusconi couple <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/09/21/donald-trump-is-americas-silvio-berlusconi/">were proposed by Rula Jebreal</a> on the "Washington Post"</span></i></div>http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com/2016/11/trump-berlusconi-and-blob.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ugo Bardi)3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4342811133328800388.post-1845017479016078282Wed, 09 Nov 2016 09:24:00 +00002016-11-09T02:53:03.339-08:00Berlusconielectionsempire of liesliesTrumpUSWhy do the Poor Vote for the Rich? Trump, Berlusconi, and the Empire of Lies<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-MsWFzxtmPCM/WCLTtD7UjwI/AAAAAAAAQ60/OYcDwQZeqxcRPcEXkUyKp_64F-DlIAWkgCLcB/s1600/trump-berlusconi.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-MsWFzxtmPCM/WCLTtD7UjwI/AAAAAAAAQ60/OYcDwQZeqxcRPcEXkUyKp_64F-DlIAWkgCLcB/s400/trump-berlusconi.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Trump and Berlusconi: the rich voted by the poor</i></span></div><br /><br />The results of the US elections were not so surprising for me; after all, I live in a country where politics has been dominated by a financial tycoon, Silvio Berlusconi, for more than 20 years. Berlusconi and Trump share many characteristics, but the most curious one is that they are rich and that the poor vote for them. Why is that? Are the poor stupid or what?<br /><br />But the poor are not stupid. It is true that they are badly misinformed by the Western media, but they also perceive that they are facing a true <a href="http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.it/2016/02/the-empire-of-lies.html" target="_blank">Empire of Lies</a> and that they are being lied to, consistently, brazenly, and gleefully. There are plenty of studies (*) showing that people detect lies not on the basis of rational considerations, but on a much simpler test: consistency. They take into account what a person does, not so much what that person says.<br /><br />In other words, if you want to help the poor and gain their trust, you have to be poor. That's why Franciscan monks wear a brown tunic, pledge to own nothing, and are forbidden even to touch money. If you want to have the vote of the poor, you don't have to arrive at such extremes, but you have to be consistent: what you are has to be in agreement with what you say. And, if you are rich, you shouldn't even try to disguise yourself as being poor. As I said, the poor are not stupid.<br /><br />That was the problem of the Italian Communist Party that was supposed to represent the workers. Over the years, it came to be led by wealthy people who claimed to represent the workers, but who were not workers; they were at best well-paid bureaucrats; at worst, thieves. Eventually, the workers started voting for Berlusconi en masse and the Italian Communist Party was swept away from history. It turned into the present "Democratic Party," a mongrel that we could define as "Berlusconi 2.0".<br /><br />Berlusconi was brash, silly, nasty, politically incorrect, a womanizer, and more, but he mainly said what he thought, he was not lying. People perceived that he was not the front man for someone else. Now, over 80 and mostly retired from politics, he could probably come back and win again.<br /><br />It is very much the same thing for Donald Trump. You may hate what he says, but there is little doubt that he says what he thinks; he is not lying. It was exactly the opposite for Hillary Clinton, who was perceived as having much to hide, despite what she kept saying. And, in the end, it makes sense to prefer an honest son of a bitch to a smooth-sounding liar, no matter how pleasant is what she says. (**)<br /><br />So, things went the way they should have. One thing that should never surprise us about the future is that it always surprises us. Will we ever learn that?<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">(*) If you have the time to read the book "Big Gods" by Ara Norenzayan, do so. It is an eye opener in this matter.</span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">(**) Remarkably, it was the right-wing Berlusconi government that created the Italian solar industry. Then, the (theoretically) left-wing government of Matteo Renzi destroyed it. Renzi killed tens of thousands of jobs in the solar industry while, at the same time, maintaining that he was creating jobs. Did I say "Empire of Lies"...... ?</span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><br /><br /><br /></div>http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com/2016/11/why-do-poor-vote-for-rich-trump.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ugo Bardi)25tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4342811133328800388.post-3099891213951608172Sun, 06 Nov 2016 19:14:00 +00002016-12-05T00:44:12.217-08:00climate changedonald trumpforeign policyHillary Clintonroman empireWhich Roman Emperor Would Donald Trump Be? <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-nc-fa7lcvbo/WB90JIqz5hI/AAAAAAAAQ6M/Zwazj5sNSl8EoB6a-gLsKHuj1f3cKKyVACLcB/s1600/Hadrian.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-nc-fa7lcvbo/WB90JIqz5hI/AAAAAAAAQ6M/Zwazj5sNSl8EoB6a-gLsKHuj1f3cKKyVACLcB/s320/Hadrian.png" width="270" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Comparing Donald Trump to Emperor Hadrian (76 – 138 CE) may seem ludicrous&nbsp;after that Marguerite Yourcenar presented Hadrian to us as a wise and enlightened emperor in her book "Memoirs of Hadrian". Yet, Hadrian found himself facing problems similar to those that all US presidents face nowadays. And some of Hadrian's solutions were not so different than those that Donald Trump is proposing today; for instance, building a wall to keep the Barbarians out.&nbsp;</span></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></i></div><div style="text-align: left;">All empires in history have gone through similar trajectories: rapid expansion at the beginning, then stasis, then decline and collapse. That was the trajectory of the Roman Empire and there is no reason why the modern empire that we call "Globalization" would follow a different one. It seems clear that the Global Empire has reached its limits and it is poised for a&nbsp;decline in the future.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">So, we find ourselves in the conditions that the Roman Empire faced during the 1st and 2nd centuries CE. The turning point for the Romans may have been the battle of Teutoburg, 7 CE, where three Roman legions were annihilated by a band of German barbarians. <a href="http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.it/2014/03/peak-civilization-how-roman-empire.html" target="_blank">That was a signal</a> that something wasn't working so well any longer with the Empire. The cost of wars had simply become too much for an Empire that was short of resources and had reached its practical limits to expansion. Then, the Emperors faced a dilemma: keep an aggressive stance and try to continue the expansion&nbsp;or retrench and defend what the Empire already had? &nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>Different emperors gave different answers to the question. Most of them were prudent; engaging only in cautious and limited conquests. But some were ambitious; the best example being Emperor Trajan (53 – 117) who embarked on a difficult campaign against Dacia with the objective of gaining control of the gold mines in the region. <a href="http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.it/2014/02/gold-and-beast-brief-history-roman.html" target="_blank">The campaign was a success</a> in military terms, but it was extremely expensive and it badly strained the finances of the Empire. Trajan's successor, Hadrian, hastened to stop all attempts of expansion, to retreat from areas that were not defendable, and to sign peace treaties with the traditional enemies of the Roman Empire. His legacy includes Hadrian's wall, <a href="http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.it/2015/09/fortress-europe-wall-to-keep-foreigners.html" target="_blank">a fortified line</a> that defended the Roman territories in Britannia from the Northern peoples. He also built and reinforced other defensive lines that would become the&nbsp;standard defense element for the Roman Empire. Hadrian may have been a wise emperor, but it is dubious that the walls were a good idea, and their costs may well have bankrupted the Empire in the long run.<br /><div><br /></div><div>Now, fast forward to our time: the next Global Emperor may be Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. Both will face the same problem: defending the vast Global Empire has become terribly expensive in a phase of diminishing resources and with the threat of climate change looming. Trump seems to have understood, at least in part, that some limits have been reached. His foreign policy is non-interventionist. It also includes a reduction of the financing for NATO and negotiates with Russia. It is not unlike Hadrian's policy of retrenchment and, like Hadrian, Trump plans a defensive wall at the borders. Just as for Hadrian's fortifications, the wisdom of this idea is at least dubious.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>Conversely, Trump's adversary, Hillary Clinton, has been much more aggressive in the past as secretary of state and she will probably maintain that stance as president. If Clinton were a Roman Emperor, she would look more like Trajan in her attitudes, or perhaps like <a href="http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.it/2015/10/a-distant-mirror-bimillenary-of.html" target="_blank">Germanicus</a>, a Roman general and candidate emperor who led the legions into a dangerous military adventure in Germania in 15-16 CE, until a more cautious emperor (Tiberius) recalled him and probably got rid of him by poisoning. Where will President Clinton lead the Global Legions? As the Romans learned, victory is never guaranteed but it is always expensive. And excessive military expenses are, normally, what takes empires to their doom.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>Whatever it happens with the upcoming elections in the US, squandering our remaining resources in new wars or in defensive walls will not be a good idea. In addition to resource depletion, we are facing a problem that the Roman Empire didn't face: that of rapid climate change that may do to us much more damage than any Barbarian army did to the Romans. Neither Trump nor Clinton seem to have understood this point.</div><div><br /></div><div>Will we ever find a wise Emperor who will lead us <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/135684/declare-war-climate-change-mobilize-wwii" target="_blank">to fight against the real threat</a>, that of climate change? The future will tell.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div></div></div>http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com/2016/11/which-roman-emperor-would-donald-trump.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ugo Bardi)10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4342811133328800388.post-3538642513249667497Fri, 04 Nov 2016 20:58:00 +00002016-11-04T13:58:28.676-07:00limits to growthMEDEASparis agreementrenewable energyMEDEAS: the more we wait before acting, the more difficult the transition will be<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WUilSZPMBMw/WBzFtzvka9I/AAAAAAAAQ58/B3L_tc1ytS4HvoaAJ2RifNGIrokB3Q0aQCLcB/s1600/GreenMEDEAS2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="408" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WUilSZPMBMw/WBzFtzvka9I/AAAAAAAAQ58/B3L_tc1ytS4HvoaAJ2RifNGIrokB3Q0aQCLcB/s640/GreenMEDEAS2.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Michael Green of the<a href="http://www.anglia.ac.uk/global-sustainability-institute-gsi/about-us/people" target="_blank"> Sustainability Institute</a> at Anglia Ruskin presents his models at the workshop of the <a href="http://www.medeas.eu/" target="_blank">MEDEAS EU project</a> held in Barcelona on Nov 2-3 2016. Note in the image how waiting before acting requires more drastic measures than acting immediately, assuming that it is still possible to attain the goals of the Paris agreement.</i></span></div><br /><br />The <a href="http://www.medeas.eu/" target="_blank">MEDEAS</a> models are still being refined, but the main results are already robust. At the recent workshop that was held in Barcelona, it was clear that business as usual (BAU) is not taking us where we want to go, that is to attain the targets of the Paris agreement. Only drastic policy measures can do that. And the longer we wait, the harder it will be.<br /><br />This is nothing new: we were already alerted long ago about the crisis that we would be facing. It was in 1972 that the "Limits to Growth" report was published, and its results were also robust. Relying on non-renewable resources would have brought the human civilization to a crisis that could be expected for somewhere during the first 2-3 decades of the 21st century. Today, the&nbsp; models tell us that the crisis is here. <br /><br />40 years ago, we could have acted decisively and with little pain to avoid the present crisis. Today, it is extremely difficult, although not yet impossible, but it takes <a href="http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/9/094009/meta" target="_blank">pain and effort</a>. But we can't wait much longer before taking drastic measures to boost renewable energy and phase out fossil fuels.<br /><br /><br /><br /></div>http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com/2016/11/medeas-more-we-wait-before-acting-more.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ugo Bardi)3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4342811133328800388.post-4674897887057225155Sat, 29 Oct 2016 13:03:00 +00002016-10-30T10:04:08.907-07:00airlinesfuelshydrogensustainabilityHydrogen powered planes: can they save the airlines?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><br /></i></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-U6HvIKM-RkU/V_ywK1f01II/AAAAAAAAQyI/Zch0crFzMWQr7Fnpsv4fSysHng_pE0_FACLcB/s1600/H2fuelledplane.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="257" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-U6HvIKM-RkU/V_ywK1f01II/AAAAAAAAQyI/Zch0crFzMWQr7Fnpsv4fSysHng_pE0_FACLcB/s400/H2fuelledplane.png" width="400" /></a></i></span></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><br /></i></span><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Not exactly the same thing as the current generation of planes! To run on hydrogen, the airlines would require a completely new generation of planes. (<a href="http://arctic-news.blogspot.it/2016/04/can-we-design-hydrogen-fuelled-aircraft.html" target="_blank">source</a>)</i></span></div><br /><br />Years ago, a Ukrainian colleague told me about a plan that the Soviet Union had for their military presence in the Mediterranean Sea. Because of the long supply lines from the home bases, they were thinking of using their nuclear-powered battle cruisers to produce hydrogen in order to fuel their warplanes.<br /><br />I have no way to verify whether this story is true or not; I couldn't find any trace of it on the Web. But it is not unreasonable that the idea of hydrogen fueled warplanes was seriously taken into consideration in the 1980s, when the Soviet Union still had dreams of being a superpower. In any case, nothing came out of it and there are good reasons for that: a hydrogen-powered plane is an engineering nightmare for several reasons that are well described in a post by S.H. Salter that <a href="http://arctic-news.blogspot.it/2016/04/can-we-design-hydrogen-fuelled-aircraft.html" target="_blank">Sam Carana published on his blog</a> a few months ago. The full post is reproduced below.<br /><br /><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-P9hx7xUDd5g/V_y0ONNbDCI/AAAAAAAAQyU/7xhN2GPhzDEWZ4QeehUrYtE45oIilmdUQCLcB/s1600/Shuttle.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-P9hx7xUDd5g/V_y0ONNbDCI/AAAAAAAAQyU/7xhN2GPhzDEWZ4QeehUrYtE45oIilmdUQCLcB/s200/Shuttle.png" width="170" /></a>If running a warplane on hydrogen is a nightmare, doing that with the civilian airlines is much worse. Salter makes it clear how complex and difficult the task is. Hydrogen was a good fuel for the Space Shuttle, but the shuttle was not a passenger plane and it carried a gigantic external tank full of liquid hydrogen. This is because hydrogen is a good fuel in terms of weight, but it is bulky. In a passenger plane, the fuel is carried mainly in the wings, but there is just no way to do that with compressed or liquid hydrogen without completely redesigning the whole plane. And that implies replacing the whole fleet of the civilian airlines.<br /><br />In a little more than a century, we went from the flimsy planes of the Wright brothers to the current generation of wide-body aircraft. The lifetime of the present planes is supposed to be around 30 years or more and it took seven years to deliver the first Airbus A380 (in 2007) from when the decision was taken to design and produce it. And the A380 makes use of proven technologies - it is just one of a long line of aircraft that have been developed and tested over more than 50 years. How long would it take to rebuild the whole airline fleet? Can we afford to do it? Will we have to ground the airlines before it is too late to avoid the worst disasters of climate change?<br /><br />So, it is easy to write books about the upcoming "hydrogen based economy," assuming that all technical problems can be solved by throwing a little money at them. It is not so easy. Then, of course, there are other renewable fuels that could be used instead of hydrogen, but I will discuss that in another post, but let me tell you that things are not much better. Making a "sustainable plane" is a technological nightmare, at least if we pretend from it the performance we pretend from the current generation of planes.<br /><br />_____________________________________<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><a href="http://arctic-news.blogspot.it/2016/04/can-we-design-hydrogen-fuelled-aircraft.html" target="_blank">From Sam Carana's blog</a></i></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span> <span style="font-size: small;"> </span><br /><div class="post-header"></div><span style="font-size: small;"> </span><br /><div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-3201386098191357242" itemprop="description articleBody"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span><br /><div class="qowt-stl-Normal" id="E79" style="background-color: white; font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,Tinos,&quot;Baskerville Old Face&quot;,&quot;Bell MT&quot;,serif; list-style-type: none; padding: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span id="E80" style="display: inline; font-weight: bold; white-space: pre-wrap;">Can we Design Hydrogen-Fuelled Aircraft?</span></span></div><span style="font-size: small;"> </span><br /><div class="qowt-stl-Normal" id="E81" style="background-color: white; font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,Tinos,&quot;Baskerville Old Face&quot;,&quot;Bell MT&quot;,serif; list-style-type: none; padding: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><br /><div class="qowt-stl-Normal" id="E83" style="background-color: white; font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,Tinos,&quot;Baskerville Old Face&quot;,&quot;Bell MT&quot;,serif; list-style-type: none; padding: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span id="E84" style="display: inline; white-space: pre-wrap;">S H Salter, Engineering and Electronics, University of Edinburgh.EH9 3JL.</span></span></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"> <br />The collection of temperature measurements by David Travis following the 3-day grounding of all US civilian flights after 9/11 showed the astonishing effect of jet exhaust on the environment. If burning hydrocarbon fuel in the stratosphere ever becomes a criminal offence, the aviation industry will have an interesting problem. A possible solution is the use of hydrogen as a fuel. Is this technically possible? <br /><br />The Airbus 380 carries 250 tonnes of fuel with a total calorific value of about 1013 joules. Fuel is stowed in wing tanks but this would be a volume of about one eighth of the fuselage. The calorific value per unit mass of hydrogen is about 3.5 times that of jet fuel and so the weight of hydrogen for the same range would be only about 70 tonnes. Unfortunately the ratio of density of jet fuel to un-pressurized hydrogen is about 9000, so the design problem is how to reduce the volume ratio by about 2500. If we compress hydrogen to reduce its volume by a factor of, say, 100 we still have a fuel volume of 25 times the liquid fuel one or 3.2 times the fuselage volume. The cube root of 3.2 is 1.47 so by increasing all three fuselage dimensions by this factor we could have an aircraft with enough volume for all fuel in the fuselage but no passenger space. An increase by a factor of about 1.6 in both diameter and fuselage length would give enough volume for passengers provided they did not feel unhappy about being close to so much hydrogen.<br /><br />The immediate reaction against the proposal will be triggered by embedded folk memories of the Hindenburg. Any use of hydrogen will need careful public relations. The Hindenburg survival rate was 64%, much better than crashes of modern conventional aircraft. Deaths were caused by jumping not burning. People who stayed aboard until the wreck reached the ground were unharmed. It is likely that the fire started in the fabric dope rather than the hydrogen. Because spilt hydrogen moves rapidly upwards there is much less risk than from a liquid fuel or heavier-than-air gases like butane or propane which regularly cause devastating explosions in boats and buildings. Furthermore the heat radiated by the invisible hydrogen flame is much lower than that from carbon particles in hydrocarbon flames. We can argue that hydrogen is actually safer than jet fuel, petrol and hydrocarbon gases.<br /><br />We can spend the 180 tonne fuel weight-saving on gas storage bottles in the form of a low-permeability skin surrounded by wound carbon fibres. A helical winding of aluminium sheet with a low diffusion coefficient for hydrogen looks good. It can be made with the linear equivalent of spot welding. The axial stress in a thin-wall tube under pressure is only half the hoop stress, so we can use the gas tubes as fuselage strength-members. Once the fuselage bending moments are known, we can choose the wrap angle of the windings to give the right balance of directional strength. One structure might be a bundle of nine tubes in a hexagonal array with six full of hydrogen and three containing passengers. A cross section is sketched in the figure. Other configurations are being studied.<br /><br />The smooth stress paths of the gas bottles would be badly disrupted by the conventional design of landing gear. Can we get rid of it? The requirements for processing the variable energy flows from renewable-energy sources have led to the development of new high-pressure oil machines using digital rather than analogue control of machine displacement. These machines have very high conversion efficiencies and very easy interfaces to computers (see http://www.artemisip.com/ ) . The extremely accurate control of very large energy flows allows many new applications. One of these involves replacing the landing gear of large passenger aircraft with a ground vehicle. Please suspend disbelief until you have considered the following facts:<br /></span><br /><ol><li><span style="font-size: x-small;">The landing gear of the A380 weighs 20 tonnes, say, 200 passengers. This weight is carried round the world for many hours and then used for only a few minutes on each flight.</span></li><li><span style="font-size: x-small;">The landing gear occupies a substantial volume of the internal space. The volume restriction limits the travel of the landing gear and so increases acceleration forces.</span></li><li><span style="font-size: x-small;">The requirement for openings compromises the structural integrity of the fuselage and adds weight, even more passengers.</span></li><li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Landing gear must perform with very high reliability despite the weight penalty and extreme temperature cycling.</span></li><li><span style="font-size: x-small;">The full weight of the aircraft must be passed to the ground through highly stressed points.</span></li><li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Gas turbines are very inefficient for moving aircraft on the ground at slow speeds.</span></li><li><span style="font-size: x-small;">On the A380 the shape of the landing gear doors and opening spoils the aerodynamic fairness.&nbsp;</span></li><li><span style="font-size: x-small;">There is a severe design conflict between tyre weight, tyre life and braking performance.</span></li></ol><span style="font-size: x-small;"> An alternative might be to provide the function of the landing gear by a special-purpose ground vehicle. It would of course have to have VERY reliable links to the aircraft ground approach electronics so as to be in exactly the right place and moving with the right velocity underneath an aircraft on final approach. However there would be no weight, volume or temperature compromises.<br /><br /></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-IYMcLn41ZuI/VxS_QLN4MYI/AAAAAAAAULM/RP__H0QRZGMkFPTx3TEXybB_CCDAvipqQCLcB/s1600/4.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="412" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-IYMcLn41ZuI/VxS_QLN4MYI/AAAAAAAAULM/RP__H0QRZGMkFPTx3TEXybB_CCDAvipqQCLcB/s640/4.png" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"> <br />The contact between the landing vehicle and the aircraft would be provided by a nest of large air-filled tubes like very large, very soft V-block, running the full length of the fuselage. This would spread the weight evenly into the aircraft skin. The tube surfaces could have vacuum suckers, like an octopus, which could apply shear forces evenly to the aircraft skin. The bags could be on a frame which could have hydraulic actuators to give a much longer travel than the legs of the landing gear. Tilting this frame would remove the need for the angling of the rear underside of the fuselage required to prevent ground contact at V-Rotate. This would further reduce drag during flight. The absence of fuselage penetrations could allow safe water landings for emergency. Runways can have parallel lakes presenting a much lower fire hazard if fuel is spilt. The impact loading on the runway would be much reduced and it might even be possible to revert to grass runways with several parallel operations from any wind direction.<br /><br />The ground vehicles could use Diesel engines with much higher efficiency at taxi speed than gas turbines. They could have higher acceleration during take off and higher deceleration during landing. The hydraulic transmission would also allow regenerative braking, so the kinetic energy from one landing could be used for the next take-off. All-wheel steering and the option of direct side movement would allow much better use of ground space. The ground vehicle could have many more tyres, which need have no weight or volume compromise to achieve high braking. It could have an air-knife to dry runway surfaces and remove snow. There would be plenty of time to inspect and exchange landing vehicles and they would be in use for a much higher fraction of the time. The landing vehicles could gently lower aircraft on to passive supports at each loading pier and be used for other movements while aircraft were being boarded or serviced.<br /><br /></span><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Q3ECpgL3K5I/VxS0dApAoRI/AAAAAAAAUK0/GjR-VOFqSqsyjPFY8d0tYw4e69rEr1C3wCLcB/s1600/3.png" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="283" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Q3ECpgL3K5I/VxS0dApAoRI/AAAAAAAAUK0/GjR-VOFqSqsyjPFY8d0tYw4e69rEr1C3wCLcB/s320/3.png" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Images by S H Salter, University of Edinburgh.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: x-small;"> The volume of most aircraft wings is much below that of the fuselage and so there is not a strong reason to use gas tubes as structural wing members. However they would offer a way to offset the extra drag of the larger frontal cross-section. From the original work by Prandtl, it has long been known that sucking air from the upper surface of an aerofoil section will reduce the drag by an amount which far offsets the power needed for a suction pump. Schlichting in figure 14.9 of Boundary Layer Theory gives a graph showing a factor of more than two. An objection to suction on wings, where the outer skin is a structural member, is that perforations and slits cause stress concentrations. This should not apply to wing spars made as gas tubes supporting an unstressed skin. <br /><br />It is important that using fuel does not move the centre of gravity of the aircraft. This happens automatically with fuel stowed in wing tanks. If large quantities of fuel are to be stored in the fuselage it will be necessary to have the centre of pressure of the wings close to the centre of gravity of the fuselage-engine combination. The choice of a ground-based landing vehicle suggests high wings and engine placement above the wing. In theory at least, this will give some advantage from higher air-velocity over the upper wing surface and lower noise transmission to ground level. It is much easier to service and inspect equipment if you do not have to reach above your head. Cranes lifting an engine upwards are much more convenient than forklift trucks working from below. While some change in the architecture of maintenance hangers would be required, high engines accessed from above would by no means be unwelcome to ground crew.<br /><br />Gas tubes may not be ideal for connections to a low-chord wing and so the longer attachment line of a delta wing, such as used in the Vulcan and Concord and many fighter designs, should be investigated. A flat underside will relax the requirement for precision in yaw during landing. Suction may be able to offset some of the disadvantages of the delta wing as applied to civilian aircraft provided always that they can land safely after a failure of the suction system. A delta wing with a deep thickness and a leading edge made from very strong but transparent material, perhaps poly carbonate, might even allow passengers to sit in the wing enjoying a splendid view if their vertigo allows.<br /><br />The range of the A 380 is 15,000 kilometres. While this may have been chosen for passenger convenience with the properties of present fuels, it is larger than necessary for trans-Atlantic flights and could allow a further volume reduction. The San Francisco to Sydney distance is only 12000 km and stops in mid Pacific could be very attractive. <br /><br />Before we waste time on radical new aircraft designs and ground-based landing systems, it is necessary to confirm that burning hydrogen in gas turbines at high altitudes will be a chemically appropriate solution. If we burn hydrogen in ambient air there will be no release of carbon dioxide but there will still be the formation of nitrogen–oxygen compounds collectively known as NOXes. If these are cooled very rapidly, as in the adiabatic expansion of an internal combustion engine, they can be ‘frozen’ at the high-temperature equilibrium state with lots of very nasty acids. The lower combustion pressure and slightly slower cooling of a jet exhaust should be less severe but we want to quantify the severity of the problem. There may even be problems from ice crystals formed from the exhaust. I have asked colleagues at the National Centre for Atmospheric Research at Boulder Colorado for an opinion.<br /><br />There is one engine design in which the combustion products cool slowly enough for almost all the NOX production to revert to ambient values. This is the Stirling engine originating from 1815 but abandoned because of the absence of materials with good thermal conductivity and high hot strength. Much better materials are now available. By an extraordinary coincidence, the digital hydraulic systems needed for the speed and accuracy of the ground-based landing gear can also radically change the design of Stirling engines by using hydraulics to replace the crank and connecting rods of the conventional Stirling engine. A Stirling-engined aircraft would probably have to use a ducted fan or propeller propulsion but these could still allow civilian aviation to continue in a NOX-sensitive world.<br /><br />The best way to do experiments on high-altitude engine-chemistry might be from a balloon. Do we know anyone with an interest in this area?</span></div><div class="post-footer"><div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> </span></div></div></div>http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com/2016/10/hydrogen-powered-planes-what-could-be.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ugo Bardi)16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4342811133328800388.post-1832814279035765586Sat, 22 Oct 2016 16:07:00 +00002016-10-24T22:40:11.062-07:00atomic energyCO2ethanolmiraclesscientific miracleThe mother of all promises and how science failed to maintain it<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ph9nVGLtuuk/WAt9mOK7w3I/AAAAAAAAQ44/h055R7ewDfMFc5nZPiBN9iHnvhLIMfHRwCLcB/s1600/genie3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ph9nVGLtuuk/WAt9mOK7w3I/AAAAAAAAQ44/h055R7ewDfMFc5nZPiBN9iHnvhLIMfHRwCLcB/s400/genie3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>"Energy too cheap to meter" was the mother of all promises (above, Disney's atomic genius from 1956).&nbsp; Unfortunately, science failed utterly to deliver this and many other promises made during the "nuclear age," and even later. Eventually, people will realize how much hot air there is in the press releases about pretended scientific breakthroughs and, already today, we shouldn't be surprised if so many people don't trust what the scientists are telling them about climate change.</i></span></div><br /><br />In the 1950s, during the high times of the "atomic age", someone had the unfortunate idea of claiming that nuclear technologies would give us, one day, "<a href="https://public-blog.nrc-gateway.gov/2016/06/03/too-cheap-to-meter-a-history-of-the-phrase/" target="_blank">energy too cheap to meter.</a>" We might call it "the mother of all promises" and, of course, it was not maintained. But, as propaganda often does, it stuck in people's minds and it seems that many people still believe in the concept that energy too cheap to meter is just around the corner. Many seem to expect it to come with one of the many scams about "free energy" or "cold fusion" that litter the Internet today.<br /><br />But breakthroughs bordering on miracles are claimed also in other fields of science and some scientists seem to have made a point in saving the world every two weeks or so. The latest <a href="http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/green-tech/a23417/convert-co2-into-ethanol/" target="_blank">scientific claim </a>that went viral on the web is about a catalyst able to turn CO2 directly into ethanol. It is likely that many people understood as a miracle that would remove the dreaded CO2 from the air and transform it into something useful at little or no cost.<br /><br />Yet, if you look at the<a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/slct.201601169/full" target="_blank"> original article</a>, you will find nothing that suggests that this catalyst is ready for practical, real-world applications. There are no data about how long it can last in operating conditions, nor there are calculations that would tell us how efficient would be the whole process, considering that one has to saturate the electrolyte with CO2. The authors themselves state that "The overpotential (which might be lowered with the proper electrolyte, and by separating the hydrogen production to another catalyst) probably precludes economic viability for this catalyst." So, we have something that works in the lab, which is fine, of course, but we should never forget that the graveyard of failed inventions is littered with tombstones with the inscription "in the lab, it worked."<br /><br />In the discussion that took place on Facebook about this story, some people asked me why I was criticizing this paper so much; after all, they said, it is a legitimate research report. It is true, but the problem is another one. What is the public supposed to think about this?<br /><br />Most people will see only the press release and they lack the intellectual tools needed to understand and evaluate the original. And from the press release hey will understand that scientists are making a new claim of a further scientific miracle that will solve some important problem at some unspecified moment in the future. And then the whole story will be forgotten and the problems of climate, pollution, depletion, etc., will still be there; worse than before.<br /><br />It is true that the myth of the scientific miracle is stubborn, mainly because it is a comfortable myth: nobody has to do anything except giving some money to our priests in white coats. But that can't last forever. Science, as all human enterprises, doesn't live in a vacuum, it lives on its reputation. People believe that science can do something good for them because science has done that in the past. But this reputation is being tarnished a little every time some hyped scientific claim falls into oblivion, as it is destined to do. The reserve of trust that science has accumulated in the past is not infinite.<br /><br />Already today, you can see the decline of the reputation of science with the many people who believe that no man ever never walked on the moon. Even worse, you can see it with those (nearly 50% of the American public) who believe that human-caused climate change is an elaborate hoax created by a cabal of evil scientists who are only interested in their fat research grants.<br /><br />So, what happens when the reserve of trust in science runs out for good? I don't know, but wouldn't it be a good thing for scientists to be a little more humble and stop promising things they know they can't maintain?<br /><br /><br /><br /><i>See also <a href="http://theconversation.com/science-in-crisis-from-the-sugar-scam-to-brexit-our-faith-in-experts-is-fading-65016" target="_blank">this recent post</a> by Andrea Saltelli on the same subject</i><br /><i><br /></i><br /><br /><br /></div>http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-mother-of-all-promises-and-how.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ugo Bardi)23tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4342811133328800388.post-8333846377834616822Sun, 16 Oct 2016 21:22:00 +00002016-10-17T00:12:27.062-07:00collapsecrude oilfriendsterseneca cliffSeneca effectAnother Example of a Seneca Cliff: the Demise of Friendster<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0aSSqRh1loI/WAPkwfQ2goI/AAAAAAAAQz8/JNViWlCytHohGkpBew9IaIWxi3XOauLDgCLcB/s1600/Friendster.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="328" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0aSSqRh1loI/WAPkwfQ2goI/AAAAAAAAQz8/JNViWlCytHohGkpBew9IaIWxi3XOauLDgCLcB/s640/Friendster.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">The results of a Google Trend search for "Friendster", an old social network. It is a nearly perfect "<a href="http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.it/2011/08/seneca-effect-origins-of-collapse.html" target="_blank">Seneca Shape</a>," where decline is faster than growth.</span></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">"Friendster" was a social network that, in many ways, pre-dated Facebook. Friendster collapsed rapidly, starting in around 2009, providing us with an impressive example of a "<a href="http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.it/2011/08/seneca-effect-origins-of-collapse.html" target="_blank">Seneca Shape</a>", a curve where decline is much faster than growth, or, as Seneca the philosopher said long ago, "ruin is rapid".&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;">The demise of Friendster has been studied in at least two recent papers. One by Garcia et al, (2013) "<a href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/1302.6109.pdf" target="_blank">Social Resilience of online communities</a>" and another by Yu et al., (2016) titled "<a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2016/09/30/1612094113.abstract" target="_blank">System crash as dynamics of complex networks</a>" These papers interpret the collapse in terms of the dynamic evolution of a network, whereas, earlier on, I had proposed <a href="http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.it/2011/08/seneca-effect-origins-of-collapse.html" target="_blank">a model</a> where this specific shape could be derived from system dynamics.<br /><br />Basically, there must be more than one way to skin a platypus: both the studies cited are based on collective feedback effects, which is the crucial factor that makes collapses occur. So, network theory is more detailed, system dynamics is more aggregated, but we are describing the same phenomenon, although from different viewpoints. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">In both cases, anyway, we find that ruin is rapid. As long as it occurs to an obsolete social service, it is not a big problem. But if it were to occur to something massive and vital for civilization, such as the oil industry, then we could see something <a href="http://davecoop.net/seneca.htm" target="_blank">like this</a>.... ouch.......</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wKbIyI8uJ8k/WAPr8LYlztI/AAAAAAAAQ0Q/HeXK3H-EpToMxYqfDP4OPeoodPekl9oxwCLcB/s1600/senecagraphCooper.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="247" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wKbIyI8uJ8k/WAPr8LYlztI/AAAAAAAAQ0Q/HeXK3H-EpToMxYqfDP4OPeoodPekl9oxwCLcB/s400/senecagraphCooper.gif" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div></div>http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com/2016/10/another-example-of-seneca-cliff.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ugo Bardi)12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4342811133328800388.post-8952358664944330557Fri, 14 Oct 2016 12:29:00 +00002016-10-14T08:27:59.660-07:00CO2environment friendlytowelsAren't humans a little weird?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ex8tLfLjvgk/WADMhjlLwUI/AAAAAAAAQzA/XOGHY_yAuQkCxH6A44U5Gwir3ciI65RrgCLcB/s1600/FunnyHumans.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ex8tLfLjvgk/WADMhjlLwUI/AAAAAAAAQzA/XOGHY_yAuQkCxH6A44U5Gwir3ciI65RrgCLcB/s640/FunnyHumans.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><br />Just a little note about something I noticed a few days ago in a hotel room. Note the ubiquitous sign where they ask you whether you want to be environmentally friendly by not having your towel replaced. I don't think there remains a single hotel in the whole world where they don't ask you that.<br /><br />But, in this case, the sign is placed right near the tower rail heating system; it is electric, not part of the room heating system. And there is no obvious way to turn it off in case you feel that your towels are warm enough at the temperature of the room.<br /><br />Maybe you could make an LCA study that will tell you that an electric rail-heating system is less energy hungry than having a towel washed. Or maybe not. But it is funny that how successful a plea for being environmentally friendly can be. And how meaningless, considering the amount of energy that the people staying in hotels must have used to get there.<br /><br />So, in the end, asking you if you want your towel washed or not seems more than all a little propitiatory spell to make you feel good. Maybe you flew there all the way from the other side of the world, spwing untold amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. But, what the hell, you are a friend of the environment and you will keep your wet towels on that electrically heated rail!<br /><br />Aren't humans a little weird?<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com/2016/10/arent-humans-weird.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ugo Bardi)7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4342811133328800388.post-7612052879526506590Wed, 12 Oct 2016 17:33:00 +00002016-10-12T10:35:15.148-07:002052climate changelimits to growthrandersJorgen Randers: updating "2052"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ym3s1XOjG2M/V_5vg2om7uI/AAAAAAAAQys/J1_oFP8YvuoBI3IdBYS51MFSsA9WTQ7nQCLcB/s1600/Jorgen2052.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="482" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ym3s1XOjG2M/V_5vg2om7uI/AAAAAAAAQys/J1_oFP8YvuoBI3IdBYS51MFSsA9WTQ7nQCLcB/s640/Jorgen2052.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Jorgen Randers speaking in Cambridge, 12 Oct 2016</span></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"></div><br /><br />Today, in Cambridge, a meeting was held with several of the authors of the "Glimpses" that were part of the "2052" book by Jorgen Randers. The idea was to update the forecasts that were published in 2012.<br /><br />Randers showed the update of his model, obtained with new data and with some modifications of the model itself. In five years, there have been modest changes and the basic results of the initial model are confirmed. Basically:<br /><br />1. Randers' model sees the growth of both the economy (in terms of GDP) and of the population up to 2052; although the forecasted population is less than 9 billion people, much lower than the UN predictions.<br /><br />2. Randers' model doesn't see scarcity for any resource, at least up to 2052<br /><br />3. Inequality and poverty will remain as significant problems.<br /><br />4. The model clearly says that we are NOT staying below the 2 degrees limits. Renewables will be growing fast, but so will do fossil fuels at least for another couple of decades. Randers' climate model (a different one) doesn't produce a "climate tipping point" for the rest of the century, but the raising temperatures will do enormous damage to the world's economy and to people.<br /><br />Of course, forecasts are always difficult, especially when dealing with the future. My modest opinion is that Randers' model is good and I was impressed by the work that was done and that's being done to keep it up to date and to improve it; so I think that these results should be carefully studied and understood.<br /><br />Then, still according to my modest opinion, there remains a fundamental problem: models based on system dynamics are not really made to catch tipping points. I think Randers is right when he says that we won't see the climate "catching fire" during this century. We may well be on our way to an ice free planet (and the corresponding 70 m of sea level rise) but that will not be for this century (hopefully!). The kind of tipping points that we are more likely to see are the result of coupling between the climate system and the socio-economic system. For instance, no model could predict the Syrian disaster, and yet its root cause is the double whammy of global warming and oil depletion. What can happen in the future as temperatures keep rising and resources being depleted, it is probably impossible to predict by any model.<br /><br />But the meeting of today produced also elements of hope. The idea that renewables can make it seem to be diffusing and I myself presented the results of <a href="http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/9/094009/meta" target="_blank">the study that we performed with Sgouridis and Csala</a> that demonstrates just that. Others argued that the financial system is gearing up to provide the necessary resources for the transition. And, who knows? We might really make it! The future cannot be predicted, but we can always hope for a good future!<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com/2016/10/jorgen-randers-updating-2052.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ugo Bardi)13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4342811133328800388.post-2180435737322126867Sat, 08 Oct 2016 09:47:00 +00002016-10-09T07:05:00.442-07:00high altitude wind energy. airborne wind energyrenewable energywind energyAn AWEsome energy source: where do we stand with airborne wind energy?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-v34BJgs3n7s/V_i1nZUp_EI/AAAAAAAAQxY/yldQqU29dZQ66PrmwXO5kYCMK6_11JS9ACLcB/s1600/NetherlandsKites.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="298" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-v34BJgs3n7s/V_i1nZUp_EI/AAAAAAAAQxY/yldQqU29dZQ66PrmwXO5kYCMK6_11JS9ACLcB/s640/NetherlandsKites.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Kite surfing on the </span></i><i><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="st"><i>Ĳsselmeer lake, in the Netherlands; a picture that I took a couple of weeks ago. These are not kites for airborne wind energy (AWE) but, for some reason, Holland is the country where the idea of energy kites seems to be most popular; in particular because of the work of the late </i></span></span></i><i><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="st"><i><span class="st"><i>Wubbo Ockels</i> (1946 – 2014)</span>, pioneer of wind energy. </i></span>The technology is promising, but there is a long way to go before it will become a commercial reality.</span></i></div><br /><br />I have been following the development of airborne wind energy (AWE) for more than 10 years and I keep following it. This summer, I visited the campus of the Technical University of Delft, in Holland, where I met the people of <a href="https://www.enevate.nl/main/tud.html" target="_blank">"Enevate"</a>, the university spinoff dedicated to kite power, a field in which the university of Delft has been active for a long time. I found a dedicated group of young people, enthusiastic and competent, working hard at developing the concept. Recently, they scored a remarkable success obtaining the support of the EU Horizon program for the project "REACH" dedicated to airborne wind energy.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-k2zF2I7qgXk/V79k7-eazHI/AAAAAAAAQos/VvQH9kcQUCAYkdotN7Bo9zzHMFC0BB1dgCLcB/s1600/TuDelft.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="222" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-k2zF2I7qgXk/V79k7-eazHI/AAAAAAAAQos/VvQH9kcQUCAYkdotN7Bo9zzHMFC0BB1dgCLcB/s320/TuDelft.png" width="320" /></a></div>But where do we stand, today, with this technology? The idea of AWE is both simple and promising. The current generation of wind turbines work relatively well, but it is also a technology that's rapidly reaching its technical limits, given by the weight and the cost of the tower that supports the rotor. So, why can't we just get rid of the tower and have the rotor fly in the air? Think how much money we could save!<br /><br />So, we fly a kite. The kite catches the wind energy and transmits it down to earth either by onboard generators or by pulling cables that act on a ground-based generator. This technology is called in various ways, but the term "Airborne Wind Energy" seems to have become the most common one. The development of this field has been going on for at least ten years. Some years ago, I wrote an early (rather overoptimistic) <a href="http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/5538" target="_blank">paper</a> on the concept on "The Oil Drum." Recently, Euan Mearns wrote an also rather optimistic, but reasonably well-balanced,<a href="http://euanmearns.com/high-altitude-wind-power-reviewed/" target="_blank"> post</a> on the subject. A much more negative review of AWE appeared in "<a href="https://cleantechnica.com/2014/03/03/airborne-wind-energy-platypuses-instead-cheetahs/" target="_blank">GreenTech</a>" as well as in <a href="http://www.earth-syst-dynam.net/2/201/2011/esd-2-201-2011.pdf" target="_blank">another article</a> published by some researchers of the Max Planck institute. You can find a recent review of the various technical implementations of the idea in a paper written by <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032115007005" target="_blank">Cherubini et al</a>.<br /><br />So, where do we stand, today? There is no doubt that the concept of AWE is alive and well and that research on it is being performed in several laboratories all over the world with the support of governments and companies. The problem with all promising technologies is always the same: the promise must be kept. The technology must work and we can say that it does only if we have something that works and can be tested for a relatively long time. We don't seem to have arrived at that stage yet with AWE, but it is normal: research and development is a slow and expensive process; not something for mad scientists building spaceships in their basement. In my opinion, some early dreams of tapping the wind at very high altitudes, even getting energy from the jet stream, were much too ambitious. But that doesn't mean that the technology can't work. What can be done at the present stage is to work on small systems that go no higher than about 1000 m and that are manageable and relatively simple. Even for these systems, it takes time; there are still plenty of problems to solve. As somebody said, research is "1% inspiration and 99% perspiration". With AWE, there is still a lot of perspiration to do.<br /><br />One problem when dealing with energy producing technologies is the "miracle trap." We all know that we have an enormous problem with fossil fuels in terms of both depletion and pollution. We need to replace them with renewable energy as fast as possible and most of us understand that it won't be easy (although <a href="http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/9/094009/meta;jsessionid=3F267A4178596F820E48A3AC5ABA3941.c5.iopscience.cld.iop.org" target="_blank">not impossible)</a>. So, some people are actively searching for miracles and some found them in outright scams about cold fusion or mysterious unknown nuclear processes. Others use their faith on the miracles that will come as an excuse for doing nothing. And, finally, others have fallen into the opposite trap and tend to consider as a scam anything and everything that hasn't yet fulfilled its initial promises. Some people seem to have developed this attitude even toward AWE. But AWE is neither a scam nor a miracle. It is a technology being developed that needs to be studied and evaluated.<br /><br />AWE may well fulfill an important role in energy production in the future but, for the time being, we need to deploy what works, and keep working on what's promising. And if we keep a cool head, <a href="http://In the difficult situation in which we find ourselves, we need to deploy what we have that works, and keep working on what's promising. " target="_blank">we can make it</a> even with what we have. We don't need miracles; we need to work for our future. And we need to start right now.<br /><br /><br /><br />&nbsp;&nbsp;</div>http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com/2016/10/an-awesome-energy-source-where-do-we.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ugo Bardi)6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4342811133328800388.post-514500083243708357Wed, 05 Oct 2016 17:46:00 +00002016-10-05T13:44:40.540-07:00catastrophismdoomIrish famineMalthusMalthus the prophet of doom: why bother with reading the original when you can simply cut and paste from the Internet?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PiDwqz5Umwk/V_U5iXuasEI/AAAAAAAAQws/_X9RecSR9rkHvLpK5qTONh3jnGB1JCf9QCLcB/s1600/Malthus.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PiDwqz5Umwk/V_U5iXuasEI/AAAAAAAAQws/_X9RecSR9rkHvLpK5qTONh3jnGB1JCf9QCLcB/s320/Malthus.jpg" width="233" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>An excerpt from the book I am writing, "<a href="http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.it/2016/09/the-seneca-effect-soon-to-become-book.html">The Seneca Effect,</a>" that contains a chapter dedicated to the Irish famines. Above, the reverend Thomas Malthus (<span class="st">1766 - 1834)</span></i></span></div><br /><style type="text/css">p { margin-bottom: 0.1in; line-height: 120%; }</style> <br /><br /><br />The demolition of Thomas Malthus' work in our times is often based on accusing him of having predicted some awful catastrophe to occur in the near future, sometimes on a specific date. Then, since the catastrophe didn't occur, there follows that Malthus was completely wrong and nothing in his work can be salvaged. It is a well-tested method that was <a href="http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.it/2011/09/cassandras-curse-how-limits-to-growth.html">used with great success</a> against "The Limits to Growth", the report to the Club of Rome that appeared in 1972.<br /><br />Except that Malthus never made the "wrong predictions" attributed to him, just as "The Limits to Growth" <a href="http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.it/2011/09/cassandras-curse-how-limits-to-growth.html">never made wrong predictions</a>, either. There are no specific dates in Malthus' book "An essay on the Principle of Population" for where and when famines or other catastrophes should take place. For instance, Malthus says that, </div><blockquote class="tr_bq"><i>Famine seems to be the last, the most dreadful resource of nature. The power of population is so superior to the power in the Earth to produce subsistence for man, that premature death must in some shape or other visit the human race. The vices of mankind are active and able ministers of depopulation. They are the precursors in the great army of destruction; and often finish the dreadful work themselves. But should they fail in this war of extermination, sickly seasons, epidemics, pestilence, and plague, advance in terrific array, and sweep off their thousands and ten thousands. Should success be still incomplete, gigantic inevitable famine stalks in the rear, and with one mighty blow levels the population with the food of the world.</i></blockquote><br />— Malthus T.R. 1798. An Essay on the Principle of Population. Chapter 7, p 44<br /><br />Doomerish, you can surely say, but not something that you can define as a "wrong prediction". Events similar to Malthus' description really occurred before Malthus times and in the “Essay” he normally refers to historical cases, especially those that had occurred in China.<br /><br />So, Malthus was not babbling about dark and dire things to come; he was describing and analyzing events that were well known in his times. But few people, today, seem to be interested in looking up the original text and prefer to maintain that “Malthus was wrong” by repeating the legend. And, by the way, even if Malthus had been guilty of “wrong predictions”, that doesn't mean that infinite population growth could take place on a finite planet.<br /><br />The other way to demolish Malthus's ideas is to paint him as evil, in the sense that he had proposed, or favored, mass extermination as a consequence of his ideas. This is, also, a common legend and also a great injustice done to Malthus. Over the great corpus written by Malthus, it is perfectly possible to find parts that we find objectionable today, especially in his description of “primitive” people whom he calls “wretched”. In this respect, Malthus was a man of his times and that was the prevalent opinion of Europeans in regard to non-Europeans (and maybe, in some cases, still is, as described in the book “Can Non-Europeans Think?” (Dabashi and Mignolo 2015). <br /><br />Apart from that, Malthus’ writings are clearly the work of a compassionate man who saw a future that he didn't like but that he felt was his duty to describe. Surely, there is no justification in criticizing him for things that he never said, as it can be done by cutting and pasting fragments of his work and interpreting them out of context. For instance, Joel Mokyr in his otherwise excellent book titled “Why Ireland Starved”⁠ (Mokyr 1983) reports this sentence from a letter that Malthus wrote to his friend David Ricardo,<br /><br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><i>The land in Ireland is infinitely more peopled than in England; and to give full effect to the natural resources of the country, a great part of the population should be swept from the soil.</i></blockquote><br />Clearly, this sentence gives the impression that Malthus was advocating the extermination of the Irish. But the actual sentence that Malthus wrote reads, rather (Ricardo 2005)⁠ (emphasis added):<br /><br /><i></i><br /><blockquote><i>The land in Ireland is infinitely more peopled than in England; and to give full effect to the natural resources of the country, a great part of the population should be swept from the soil <b>into large manufacturing and commercial Towns.</b></i> </blockquote>So, you see that Malthus wasn't proposing to kill anyone, rather, he was proposing the industrialization of Ireland in order to create prosperity in the country. Nevertheless, legends spread easily on the web and you can see the truncated sentence by Malthus repeated over and over to demonstrate that Malthus was an evil person who proposed the extermination of the poor. I can't think that Professor Mokyr truncated this phrase himself, but he was at least careless in cutting and pasting something that he read on the Web without worrying too much about verifying the original source.<br /><br />The Web, indeed, is full of insults against Malthus. You can find an especially nasty (and misinformed one) attack against him <a href="https://understandingevil.wordpress.com/2013/04/09/the-avoidable-irish-famine-of-1846-and-an-ideology-that-is-still-with-us/">at this link</a> where you can read that, yes, the Irish famine was all a fault of Malthus who misinformed the British government, who then refused to help the poor Irish, who then starved - all based on that truncated sentence.<br /><br />Sometimes, I have the feeling that we are swimming in propaganda, drinking propaganda, eating propaganda, and even being happy about doing that.<br /><br /><br /><br />___________________________________________________________<br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Dabashi H, Mignolo W (2015) Can Non-Europeans Think? Zed Books<br /><br />Mokyr J (1983) Why Ireland Starved. Routledge, London and New York <br /><br />Ricardo D (2005) The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo. Liberty Fund, Indianapolis</i></span></div>http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com/2016/10/malthus-prophet-of-doom-why-bother-with.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ugo Bardi)15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4342811133328800388.post-5845619479559755707Sun, 02 Oct 2016 11:19:00 +00002016-10-03T04:00:03.695-07:00collapseroman empireSeneca effectThe Emperor and the Druid<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-EdkPeFHLj1Y/V_DrZYbYwqI/AAAAAAAAQwY/xJnrGiEkAV0OBMEtlQF0k6fSjuUYkvHigCLcB/s1600/Merlinandking.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-EdkPeFHLj1Y/V_DrZYbYwqI/AAAAAAAAQwY/xJnrGiEkAV0OBMEtlQF0k6fSjuUYkvHigCLcB/s400/Merlinandking.jpg" width="308" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>This text was originally part of the book that I am writing, "<a href="http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.it/2016/09/the-seneca-effect-soon-to-become-book.html" target="_blank">The Seneca Effect</a>", where it was meant to illustrate how new technologies can worsen problems, rather than solve them. Then, the book took an aspect and a structure where this piece wouldn't fit, so I removed it. But it can fit in the Cassandra Blog. Image above, Merlin advising King Arthur,&nbsp; from "<a href="http://www.mythencyclopedia.com/Le-Me/Merlin.html" target="_blank">mythencyclopedia</a>" </i></span></div><br /><style type="text/css">p { margin-bottom: 0.1in; line-height: 120%; }a:link { }</style> <br /><br /><i>Have you ever been dreaming of living in Roman times? Yes, those ancient and glorious times when the Romans had conquered all the known world and were ruling it by means of their legions, their laws, and their culture. But, if you were an ancient Roman, you would have known that you had a problem: the Roman Empire has often been under threat: rebellions, barbarians, all that. And, as a 21st-century person dreaming of those ancient times, you know that, eventually, the empire will fall. You know that Rome will be taken and sacked, that the Roman legion will be defeated and scattered, that the Roman ways will be lost and forgotten. It was the way history went but was it really unavoidable? Or could a wise emperor have done something to avoid that? <br /><br />So, imagine that some powerful magic has you transferred to those remote times in the form of a Druid living in foggy Britannia, an ancestor of Merlin the wise, smart enough to figure out that something is rotten in the Roman Empire. Then, you know that it is a tradition of Druids to alert kings and rulers of the dangers ahead. After al, it is what Merlin did that for King Arthur. So, you want to do the same for the Roman Emperor. You want to use your 21st-century knowledge in order to save the empire. <br /><br />Let's imagine that this druid lives during the golden age of the Empire, the time of the wise emperors. And let's imagine that the ruling wise emperor is actually Marcus Aurelius, the philosopher-emperor who left us his thoughts that we still read today. So, you, as that druid, leave your town of Eburacum (that today we call York) in foggy Britannia and you march all the way to Rome. Your fame has preceded you and, when you arrive in Rome, the Emperor receives you, happy to meet such a wise man from a remote province of the Empire. So, you are in front of the emperor. He looks wise, too, with his gray beard and his solemn “trabea” toga, all dyed in the sacred purple, as it befits to a reigning emperor. Maybe you would tell him something like this. </i><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">Emperor, greetings from remote Britannia! Greetings from a druid whom more than a few say is wise. Good Marcus, I walked all the way from Eburacum to Rome to advise you; hear my words! The Empire is in trouble, in great trouble. The gold mines of Iberia do not produce any more gold in such an abundance as they did long ago and the coffers of the state are becoming empty. And, without much gold and silver to pay the legionnaires, the legions are not any more so numerous as they used to be. And the people of the Empire suffer under weight of the taxation that's needed to keep manned the fortifications that protect the Empire from its enemies. Emperor, the legions are becoming smaller, the people poorer, and the fortification less safe. And the barbarians surrounding the empire are numerous and warlike and everyday they become more numerous and more warlike. Emperor, if you don't do something, one day the barbarians will overrun the fortifications, they will defeat and disperse the legions, and they will besiege and take Rome. And the great Roman Empire will be no more. </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">But, Emperor, I have wisdom that I can access by the powers I have as a druid, and it is wisdom that can help the empire! First of all, I can tell you that there are lands on the other side of the Great Ocean. It is a long travel to there, but if you send ships to those remote lands, you can find gold in abundance and replenish the coffers of the empire and with this gold you can pay the legionnaires and the Roman Army will be again as strong as it was in the old times. Then, Emperor, I can tell you that in the land I come from, there are black stones that burn. And these black stones are incredibly abundant. If you can send people to dig for them, with these black stones you can build great metal machines which, in turn, will build bigger and bigger machines. And these machines will do the work of many men and bring prosperity to the Empire. And, finally, emperor, I can tell you how to create a powder that burns; and it burns so fast that it makes a great noise and a great gust of wind comes out of it. And this powder can be made to catch fire inside a metal tube. And if one side of the tube is kept sealed and the other is open, you can place a lead ball into the tube, and the fire of the powder will project the ball fast and at a great distance and kill your enemies. And with this weapon your legions will easily defeat the barbarians. And this is the wisdom that i am bringing to you, Emperor. ” </blockquote>The emperor looks at you, perplexed. He caresses his gray beard for a while. Then he speaks:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">“Druid, I see that you know many things, and some of these things are truly wondrous to hear. And maybe, Druid, you are truly wise as some say you are. Yet, I daresay that this knowledge of yours may not be wisdom, after all. Let me tell you something about what you propose. First of all, it may be true that there are lands on the other side of the Great Ocean. And it may also be true that there is gold in these lands. But, Druid, there is gold also in much closer lands; and you should know that my predecessor, the good Emperor Trajan, may the Gods bless his memory, endeavored to invade the land that we call Dacia in order to obtain the gold that we knew was there. And you should know, druid, that the Roman legions fought hard and for a long time and covered themselves in glory and conquered that land and brought back much gold to Rome, But, druid, let me also tell you that the effort was great and the gold that could be brought to Rome was not so much that it could justify it. And so, if getting gold from a close land was so difficult and so expensive, how much more effort will take to get it from a much more remote one, on the other side of the Ocean, as you propose? </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">Then, druid, let me tell you something about the great machines that you propose to build and to power using those black stones that indeed I know exist in remote Britannia. Yes, maybe that would be possible. But the work of many men would be necessary to dig out the black stones. Would we have to weaken our fortifications or take men from farming to do that? And to bring the stones here, we would need a fleet of ships, but the fleet we have is engaged in bringing grain to Rome in order to feed the Romans. And, if we send the fleet to Britannia to load the black stones and carry them to Rome, what will the Romans eat? Would you want them to eat stones? </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">And, finally, druid, about those metal tubes that can kill people at a distance; yes, I understand that they could be a powerful weapon. But, druid, what would prevent our enemies, the barbarians, from getting those tubes themselves and using them against us? And if they were to build truly large ones, would they use them to bring down the great walls that defend the empire and the city of Rome? </blockquote>The emperor keeps caressing his gray beard, looking at you. He remains silent for a while, then he speaks again, looking very solemn in his purple toga.<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">Druid, I understand that you may be sincere in telling me the things you told me and that you may really wishing to help the empire. Yet, I think that this pretended wisdom of yours is not useful to the empire and perhaps it is even dangerous for it. And, Druid, you should understand that I am the emperor of the Romans and I have power of life and death on everyone in the city of Rome and also on everyone within the <i>limes</i> of the Empire. And if I use my power it is to protect the empire from things that I judge dangerous for the empire. And so I was thinking that I could use this power to have your head lopped off, so that this knowledge of yours would not be a danger anymore for the Empire. But since I am steeped in the ways of philosophy and I know the sacredness of life, I will not do that. So, let me offer to you an escort that will lead you back to the town of Eburacum, in remote Britannia, where I trust you will stay and from where you will never come back here again. </blockquote><br /><div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div></div>http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com/2016/10/merlin-and-emperor.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ugo Bardi)5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4342811133328800388.post-1290132214985558887Fri, 30 Sep 2016 18:56:00 +00002016-09-30T11:57:17.627-07:00climate changecoalcoal lobbyeducationrenewable energyDo we really want the coal industry to teach renewable energy to our children?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pnzhfywSu8s/V8hcesLCcHI/AAAAAAAAQqI/GA2J-KrSYUULVHdZuULAIl9yczWGm_YKgCLcB/s1600/SMESolar.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pnzhfywSu8s/V8hcesLCcHI/AAAAAAAAQqI/GA2J-KrSYUULVHdZuULAIl9yczWGm_YKgCLcB/s640/SMESolar.png" width="472" /></a></div><br />From "<a href="https://mineralseducationcoalition.org/wp-content/uploads/mec_fact_sheet_solar_panel_0.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Minerals Education Coalition</a>"<br /><br /><br />So, here is a "fact sheet" titled "<i>Metals &amp; Mineral Products used to make a Solar Panel.</i>" If you know something about how solar panels are made, you can have a good laugh at reading this list. Without going into the details, let me just mention that they manage to list at least one element (lead) which is NOT used in any kind of solar panels, while they completely miss the only rare metal that IS actually used in standard silicon solar cells: silver. And, if you know something about sputtering and thin films, read their "interesting facts" about molybdenum at page 2. That will give you a good feeling of what the acronym ROFLMAO means. <br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3CdU4ePQ2aE/V-6y2LlwMGI/AAAAAAAAQwE/jZlvq6wc30wdzln4UoWnUtSUmq8cchqtgCLcB/s1600/Sputtering.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="143" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3CdU4ePQ2aE/V-6y2LlwMGI/AAAAAAAAQwE/jZlvq6wc30wdzln4UoWnUtSUmq8cchqtgCLcB/s400/Sputtering.png" width="400" /></a></div><br />Apart from the plain mistakes, the trouble with this list is that it gives the impression that "a solar panel" would have to contain ALL these minerals, whereas most of them are used only for special application and the. All this makes the depletion of rare metals look like a fundamental problem for solar energy; there has to be a reason why I am continuously confronting people telling me that solar panels use rare earths or some other rare and exhaustible mineral. This is exactly the kind of confusion that obscures the fact that, in order to make a solar panel, all you need is aluminum and silicon, a little silver (not strictly necessary) and traces of boron and phosphorous.<br /><br />So, what do we have here? It is just a show of incompetence or something worse, a specific attempt at disinformation? What we can say that it comes from a purportedly "<a href="http://www.mineralseducationcoalition.org/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">educational</a>" organization that lists its purposes as:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><i>The Minerals Education Coalition’s (MEC) mission is to identify, produce and disseminate fact-based K-12 minerals education lessons and activities and to inform and educate the general public about the importance of mining in their everyday lives.</i></blockquote>This "Mineral Education Coalition" is a spinoff of the <a href="http://www.smefoundation.org/" target="_blank">SME Foundation</a>, the <i>Society for Mining, Metallurgy &amp; Exploration. </i>They seem to be mainly a corporate lobbying group and surely they are perfectly honest in listing their sponsor on their site<br /><i><br /></i><b>Pinnacle Partner:</b><br /><a href="http://www.fcx.com/">Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.</a><br /><br /><b>Champion Partners:</b><br /><a href="http://www.cat.com/">Caterpillar, Inc.</a><br /><a href="http://www.newmont.com/home/default.aspx">Newmont Mining Corp.</a><br /><br /><b>Benefactor Partners:</b><br /><a href="http://www.riotinto.com/default.aspx">RioTinto</a><br /><a href="http://www.arlp.com/">Alliance Resource Partners, L.P.</a><br /><a href="http://www.joyglobal.com/">JoyGlobal, Inc.</a><br /><a href="http://www.royalgold.com/">Royal Gold</a><br /><br /><b>Patron Partners:</b><br /><a href="http://www.bechtel.com/">Bechtel</a><br /><a href="http://cloudpeakenergy.com/">Cloud Peak Energy</a><br /><a href="http://www.kinross.com/">Kinross Gold USA</a><br /><a href="http://www.mmsa.net/">MMSA</a><br /><a href="http://www.vulcanmaterials.com/social-responsibility/community/vulcan-foundation">Vulcan Materials Company Foundation</a><br /><br />These are all mining companies, including coal mining ones. This being the case, it is not surprising that their site shows a clear anti-renewable, anti-climate science streak, as you see. Just a couple of examples, for instance at <a href="http://www.smefoundation.org/blogs/annmarie-estrada/2016/06/10/a-day-in-the-life-of-the-sme-foundation-beautiful-wind-turbines" target="_blank">this link</a>&nbsp;for the anti-renewable bias, and at <a href="http://min-eng.blogspot.it/2014/02/a-few-simple-questions-for-climate.html" target="_blank">this link</a> for the anti-climate science attitude. And, certainly, their president <a href="http://community.smenet.org/blogs/j-steven-gardner/2015/06/24/my-interview-with-mining-engineering-magazine?ssopc=1" target="_blank">has ideas about coal that don't seem to agree with the need of reducing emissions</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 20px;"><i> </i>(<b>boldface</b> mine) </span><br />&nbsp;<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 20px;"><i>&nbsp;</i></span><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 20px;"><i>Another challenge facing coal, and other&nbsp;mining sectors as well, are government efforts in&nbsp;the United States and other countries to combat&nbsp;climate change. We have already seen significant&nbsp;impacts on mining. In the November 2014 issue&nbsp;of Mining Engineering, John Marsden’s column&nbsp;on climate change stirred up some debate. We all&nbsp;know that climate change has natural causes, but&nbsp;human activities can contribute to the change. This&nbsp;issue is a major challenge to not only the mining&nbsp;industry, but to the public that we serve because&nbsp;now it is primarily a political issue. Regardless&nbsp;of one’s position on the issue of climate change,&nbsp;its causes or its consequences, the reality is the&nbsp;movement to reduce emissions linked to climate&nbsp;change is growing in the United States and in&nbsp;other countries. I agree with John’s analysis and&nbsp;reiterate that regardless of the accuracy of climate&nbsp;change predictions, SME needs to be part of the&nbsp;conversation so that, <b>we can continue to use our&nbsp;coal resources in a carbon-constrained world</b>. </i></span></blockquote><br />Of course, SME and its members have the right to think to publicly express whatever they like about climate science. But do we really want the mining lobby to create a spinoff dedicated to "educate children?"<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com/2016/09/do-we-really-want-coal-industry-teach.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ugo Bardi)5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4342811133328800388.post-8956971518154544605Wed, 28 Sep 2016 13:15:00 +00002016-09-28T09:59:59.952-07:00BerlusconiclintondemocracyliesTrumpWhen did you discover that there is something badly wrong with democracy?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-74KHAWW9uUI/V-I1FEQm0sI/AAAAAAAAQuk/wvJka8ucX0ALGjmNt_9K2i7GEVecorLXgCLcB/s1600/StrangeWomen.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-74KHAWW9uUI/V-I1FEQm0sI/AAAAAAAAQuk/wvJka8ucX0ALGjmNt_9K2i7GEVecorLXgCLcB/s400/StrangeWomen.jpg" width="346" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><br />For me, it was in 2009. I had been invited to speak at a meeting called "<a href="http://aspoitalia.blogspot.it/2009/05/il-festival-dellenergia-di-lecce.html" target="_blank">The Festival of Energy;</a>" a thinly disguised public relation stunt for the fossil fuel lobby, designed to show that renewable energy is a cute thing and that, surely, someday in a remote future, it might be really used.<br /><br />At the meeting, I found myself sitting in the audience in a debate about nuclear energy. The year before, Silvio Berlusconi's party, "the people of freedom," had won the national elections. Almost immediately afterward, the new government had announced that Italy was going to return to nuclear energy after a moratorium that had started in 1987, and that four new nuclear plants would be built. So, the debate was supposed to be about that.<br /><br />The experts on the panel were divided between those who were enthusiastically favorable to nuclear energy and those who were mildly favorable. The audience listened in silence, somewhat awed. Then, there came the time for questions and answers. Someone rose up and expressed the opinion that the government should have promoted a national debate before taking a decision on nuclear energy.<br /><br />The answer came from a functionary of the newly elected government and it provided for me a new understanding of the concept of "glee." Wearing an elegant double-breasted suit, this man addressed the person in the audience more or less as a Medieval lord would address one of the peasants of his feud.<br /><br />"My good man," the functionary said, "there will be no national debate on nuclear energy. We have been elected by the people on a program that said that we would have Italy return to nuclear energy and that gives us the authority to do just that. So, we decided to start building the new plants and that's what we will do. There is no need for any debate. At most, the government will explain to the citizens the advantages that they will obtain from nuclear energy."<br /><br />After such a treatment of verbal shock and awe for the audience, the debate veered on irrelevant questions. I thought that I could have risen up and challenged the double-breasted Lord on his rather extreme interpretation of "democracy". But I didn't do that. Maybe someone else did, but I can't say because I left before the end of the debate, in a rather dark mood.<br /><br />In the following period, the government didn't really succeed in forcing a "non-debate" on nuclear energy; but they kept forging onward with their plans; hammering over and over the concept that they were doing what the people had empowered them to do and that no one had the right of stopping them. For sure, the ragtag group of historical relics, Greens and Reds, who tried to oppose them never seemed to very effective.<br /><br />Then the Fukushima disaster came in March 2011, the government was badly defeated in June in a national referendum on nuclear energy, and Berlusconi was forced to resign in November. Possibly it was the result of not having been able to deliver the nuclear promises he had made to some higher powers. <br /><br />What's interesting about this old debate (if we want to call it in this way) is that the double-breasted person at the meeting had lied; just as many of his colleagues had been doing at that time. He had said that the new government had been elected on a program that included a return to nuclear power. Well, I went to check <a href="http://www.ilsole24ore.com/SoleOnLine4/SpecialiDossier/2008/elezioni-politiche-2008/articoli/programma-pdl.pdf" target="_blank">that document</a> and I found that it said nothing like that. The only statement about nuclear energy it contained said, "<i>participating in European research projects on the latest generation nuclear power</i>".<br /><br />Of course, I was not the only one who noticed that. Many other people did, and several of them tried to use this concept in the debate. But the meme didn't stick; it was drowned in the great noise of the national media and the opposition made no attempt of using it. At that time, I was surprised but, rethinking about this story, I think I shouldn't have been. Apparently, in democracy you can get away with anything, especially if it is lies. That's something that you can see very well with the ongoing American presidential elections. <br /><br />So, maybe it is true that getting swords from women lying in ponds is a better way to choose a government.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com/2016/09/when-did-you-discover-that-there-is.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ugo Bardi)9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4342811133328800388.post-6437227280336403521Mon, 26 Sep 2016 15:26:00 +00002016-09-26T08:48:55.995-07:00collapseSeneca effectThe Seneca Effect: Soon to Become a Book!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rwlXgtu_McQ/V-k0jHTS7WI/AAAAAAAAQvI/KHDx5Qvvf_QBUsH6zy2iMdQ93OJOXj8fACLcB/s1600/Screenshot%2Bfrom%2B2016-09-26%2B16%253A44%253A27.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rwlXgtu_McQ/V-k0jHTS7WI/AAAAAAAAQvI/KHDx5Qvvf_QBUsH6zy2iMdQ93OJOXj8fACLcB/s400/Screenshot%2Bfrom%2B2016-09-26%2B16%253A44%253A27.png" width="286" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>"It would be some consolation for the feebleness of our selves and our works if all things should perish as slowly as they come into being; but as it is, increases are of sluggish growth, but the way to ruin is rapid." Lucius Anneaus Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, n. 91</i></span></div><br /><br />This is very early as an announcement: don't expect this book to appear before Spring 2017 (and, BTW, the cover above is purely a fantasy of mine). However, I thought that things are advanced enough that I can announce this work in progress. I have signed a contract with Springer for publishing this book in their "<a href="http://www.springer.com/series/5342" target="_blank">Frontiers Collection</a>" and it should appear in Spring 2017. The German edition should appear a little later, published by Oekom Verlag.<br /><br />So, I have been working at full speed on this book all this summer and I can announce to you that, today - actually half an hour ago - I finished it!!! Yes, I arrived at the end of it; 97,000 words in total. I can tell you it was some work. Quite some work! And I looked at everything that I had made, and behold, it was very good!<br /><br />Well, to say that the book is finished is a bit of an exaggeration: as it is, the manuscript requires a lot more refining, retouching, and rearranging. But it has taken a shape, a logic, a form - it is something that says what I wanted to say (more or less) and excludes what I didn't want to say (more or less). So, things are moving onward according to plan.<br /><br />So, what will you be able to read in this book? It is a veritable smorgasbord of collapses: you'll read about the mechanics of fracture, the collapse of Egyptian pyramids, about financial collapses, famines, extinctions, the demise of the dinosaurs and - of course - about the fall of the Roman Empire, a favorite subject of mine. But the book is not just a list of collapses, it deals with the theory behind them: system dynamics, network theory, thermodynamics, entropy and more abstruse things which I am not sure I understand myself. And something about Seneca and Stoic philosophy, of course!<br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><br /></i></span> <span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><br /></i></span> <span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><br /></i></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-5SUZ-fjZx74/V-k9UsTIdxI/AAAAAAAAQvc/l20H2i1Bs28d27BlRbeaxVzLEgLb1vMSgCLcB/s1600/Grazia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-5SUZ-fjZx74/V-k9UsTIdxI/AAAAAAAAQvc/l20H2i1Bs28d27BlRbeaxVzLEgLb1vMSgCLcB/s200/Grazia.jpg" width="112" /></a></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>It is also too early for thanking anyone for having helped me with a book still in the making, but I would like to mention how my wife, Grazia, has gently supported me during a summer that was very busy and difficult for me. And we celebrated our 40th marriage anniversary just yesterday! Here she is, in a photo taken for the occasion!</i></span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><br /></i></span> <span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><br /></i></span><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com/2016/09/the-seneca-effect-soon-to-become-book.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ugo Bardi)15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4342811133328800388.post-1566711637941759327Tue, 20 Sep 2016 19:45:00 +00002016-09-20T12:45:46.730-07:00Creative collapsing: a way to avoid the climate disaster<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SKhCk4w2wNM/V9rdYlz56WI/AAAAAAAAQtc/LYnPuWmMeKwM4jlEzv1rH24ghssch5naACLcB/s1600/sowersway1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SKhCk4w2wNM/V9rdYlz56WI/AAAAAAAAQtc/LYnPuWmMeKwM4jlEzv1rH24ghssch5naACLcB/s400/sowersway1.jpg" width="371" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/9/094009/meta;jsessionid=7C7607A33E3D5A5B47CBFA28AB7A725D.c5.iopscience.cld.iop.org" target="_blank">Illustration from the paper </a></span></i><i><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/9/094009/meta;jsessionid=7C7607A33E3D5A5B47CBFA28AB7A725D.c5.iopscience.cld.iop.org" target="_blank"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> "The Sower's Way." </span></i>by Sgouridis, Csala and Bardi&nbsp;</a> recently published in the IOP Environmental Research Letters journal. The main points of the paper are summarized <a href="http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.it/2016/09/the-sowers-way-path-for-future.html" target="_blank">in a previous post</a>. Note how fast the production of energy must fall in order to prevent temperatures from rising above the <span class="st">2°C limit. It is a true "<a href="http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.it/2011/08/seneca-effect-origins-of-collapse.html" target="_blank">Seneca collapse</a>", necessary for the survival of the human civilization. The paper shows that it is possible to control the collapse and to use fossil fuels to produce enough energy to create a 100% renewable infrastructure and at the same time to avoid going over the edge. </span></span></i></div><br /><br />Everyone is happy about the COP21 agreement in Paris and that there seem to be a certain willingness to avoid to go over the <span class="st">2°C limit and the probable "tipping point" that will follow. But make no mistake: the task is enormously difficult. Look at these data</span> from "<a href="http://www.globalcarbonproject.org/carbonbudget/" target="_blank">The Global Carbon Project</a>".<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-CO5MvVl3gJk/V9_v2IRYQUI/AAAAAAAAQuQ/NALImR3J_BwJXSzeTL8BmubbIazwgJkSgCLcB/s1600/ar5-scenarios.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="272" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-CO5MvVl3gJk/V9_v2IRYQUI/AAAAAAAAQuQ/NALImR3J_BwJXSzeTL8BmubbIazwgJkSgCLcB/s400/ar5-scenarios.png" width="400" /></a></div><br />The blue lines are the pathways needed to have a fair chance to remain within the <span class="st">2°C limit. We have to get to zero from here to 2070, but hoping in a technological miracle that, later on, will make it possible to pump away from the atmosphere some of the CO2 emitted earlier on. Otherwise, we must throttle emissions even faster.&nbsp;</span><br /><br /><span class="st">No matter which curve you think is most likely, there remains the fact that it took a couple of centuries to arrive to the level of fossil fuel production where we are. Now, we need to go back to zero in a few decades. If this is not a "<a href="http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.it/2011/08/seneca-effect-origins-of-collapse.html" target="_blank">Seneca Collapse</a>" I don't know what is. This is a kind of collapse that I describe with the words of the ancient Roman philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca "increases are of sluggish growth, but ruin is rapid."</span><br /><br />So, it is a collapse that we need, and we'll probably have it. Even if governments and institutions fail to act on curbing emissions, it is likely that the fossil industry will collapse by itself because of increasing production costs and sluggish markets - it is happening right now. The problem is that, normally, when something very big collapses, a lot of people get hurt and we would like to avoid that.<br /><br />Is it possible to collapse gracefully and glide down in style along&nbsp;the Seneca cliff? In principle, yes. The recent <a href="http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/9/094009/meta;jsessionid=7C7607A33E3D5A5B47CBFA28AB7A725D.c5.iopscience.cld.iop.org">paper by Sgouridis, Csala and Bardi </a>, titled "The Sower's Way." takes inspiration from a strategy well known to ancient farmers, the fact that they had to save something from their current harvest for the next one; it is the origin of the common saying "don't eat your seed corn!" So, the paper reports a quantitative calculation of how much energy we must squeeze out of the remaining fossil fuels reserves in order to build up the renewable energy infrastructure that will smoothly replace the present, fossil based, infrastructure. And how to do that without going over the climate edge. If we can manage that, it will be only the fossil fuel industry that collapses, but not the rest of us. And the calculations show that it is possible. <br /><br /><span class="st">A nice idea, but there is one glitch: it will be very expensive. The data show that, if we want this transition, </span><span class="st">we have to pay for it and to start paying right now. We need to step up investments in a new energy infrastructure of at least an order of magnitude in comparison to the present level. It sounds very difficult, but it is not impossible. Creative collapsing may be the only way to avoid a climate disaster!&nbsp;</span><br /><br /><span class="st">&nbsp; </span><br /><span class="st" style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/9/094009/meta;jsessionid=7C7607A33E3D5A5B47CBFA28AB7A725D.c5.iopscience.cld.iop.org" target="_blank">The paper title "The Sower's Way" is open access on IOP Environmental Research Letters</a>. Comments on this blog are welcome.&nbsp;</span><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com/2016/09/creative-collapsing-way-to-avoid.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ugo Bardi)24